It’s a situation many Tesla owners have likely encountered: you get out of the car and lock it, but a passenger with their phone key stays inside. You might walk away assuming the car is locked and secure, but because a key is still detected nearby, the doors can be opened from the outside.
Now, a new undocumented feature in software update 2025.26 is alerting users to this issue and clearly showing that the vehicle doors can still be opened.
New Alert UI
When you remotely lock the vehicle while a phone key is detected inside or near the vehicle, Tesla will now alert users inside and outside the vehicle.
On the touchscreen, there’s now a new glowing animation that lets users know that the vehicle can still be opened from the outside due to a phone key being nearby. This is shown near lock buttons in the status bar and above the vehicle.
On the outside, users will also be alerted when the vehicle can still be opened. Tesla will flash the hazard lights twice, and the mirrors will not fold in as they usually do.
New Animation explaining Phone Key is still nearby vehicle when you remotely lock it! pic.twitter.com/F7P1dOQ7tl
— Bennett (@_bennettm_) August 7, 2025
Details and Model Support
Beyond just informing the passengers, the new interface also provides a solution. There’s a drop-down menu, similar to the ‘Unlock Doors’ menu, that says “Doors can still be opened. Phone key is nearby.” Users are given the option to “Lock Doors,” which disables automatic unlocking of the doors from the outside.
The system appears to work by using a combination of seat sensors and possibly the cabin radar to detect that a person is still inside the car, along with Bluetooth to determine the distance of the phone key. This feature is not exclusive to vehicles with ultra-wideband and is available on older vehicles as well.
Locking and unlocking doors can definitely get a little tricky when it involves multiple people and multiple phone keys. Adding in a few more alerts is a good thing as you don’t want to encounter a situation when you think the vehicle is locked, but someone can open it from the outside due to a phone key being inside the vehicle.
The functionality of this feature is a bit vague, but we were able to reproduce it on a 2025 Model Y and a 2018 Model 3 - but not on the Cybertruck.
