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Comment by lzm | Hacker News Reader

"My car will unlock itself when I touch it, and will start without me putting the key in the ignition."

What? I've never heard of such thing. What car does this?

My 2007 Prius has this, it detects the key fob within about 2 feet of the car, and there's a switch along the inside of the door handle that when you touch it (and the key is close), it unlocks the car. When I drive, my key never leaves my pocket, and I never have to push any buttons on my keys (there's a similar lock button on the handle too).

Also prevents me from ever locking the keys in the car, since... they'd be in range, and it'd open.

Better yet -- the car senses when the keys are inside and just doesn't lock the doors. This is the actual behavior. I believe there are 3 sensors on the outside of the car (2 front doors, 1 on the trunk) and 2 inside the car, one in the trunk, and one in the dash. The one in the trunk is specifically for the "you locked your keys in your car" problem.

Right, I glossed over it, but even if you slip the keys in through a slightly open window, you should still be able to get in.

The prius is like the iphone, it's not a very good car (like the iphone isn't a very good phone), but everything else is a nice touch that makes it fun to use.

Lots of cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_key

Wikipedia is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_keyless_system

Apparently the tech has been around for a while +5 years.

A lot of the newer infinitis are like this.

In fact, a lot of new cars in general are like this, which I find absurdly annoying.

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