Typing a password slows you down, so now you'll need to enter a 2fa and a password. Fucking brilliant!
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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AssholeDesign
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In exchange for being able to check what the charge is on our car - basically, whether it's time to leave coffee shop - I get one of the most information-stealing, asks too-many-privileges apps on my phone. And it's quite hard to do without it with an electric car. Looking at you, Ford, although I understand all manufacturers do the same.
MFAA and a password in exchange for eg. an OAuth token so that you can manage the devices on your account, and then use your phone's usual security to control access to the app, would be one thing. But this looks more like the security team has made some demands, and the developers have implemented it in the laziest, MVP-compliant, way that they can.
Ford's app doesn't actually require ANY permissions other than network access to do what you said. It doesn't even require Nearby Devices to lock/unlock the car, nor start climate, set departure times, etc. Their app is actually pretty non-intrusive.
...this is thanks to the fact that the car's onboard modem is so "cloud connected" instead, so it's even more difficult to avoid telemetries! So cool, right?
This is also why I will always make sure I have a physical keyfob if I'm ever driving a Ford somewhere. It has happened way too often that when Google Cloud has problems, Ford's "keyless entry" goes down.
More like the marketing team has made some demands that the information absolutely must never, at all costs, be provided in an open API that third-party apps that don't steal your private info can use.
We need so much more consumer protection regulation than we have.