I’m pretty sure most cars in the later key era used some sort of chip verification on ignition for the key. It wasn’t just a physical thing. Given it was 15 yea

I’m pretty sure most cars in the later key era used some sort of chip verification on ignition for the key. It wasn’t just a physical thing. Given it was 15 years ago, I don’t know how cryptographic the proof was - perhaps it was just reading a number from the key. But the hyper short range nature of it made it quite secure.