As modern safety standards and technology advance with time, more and more features need to be added to vehicles. As such, car companies are constantly looking at ways to adapt their vehicles and the components within them in order to maximize the amount of features each vehicle can hold and still be able to function properly. Where other safety features, like backup sensors and lane occupancy sensors, can take up a lot of room and computing power within a vehicle, things like transponder keys can offer an amazing safety feature without taking up a lot of space.

Transponder keys have a radio-frequency (RF) transmitter inside them. While this does make them slightly bulkier than other keys, it’s not usually by much, especially in newer vehicle models. This RF transmitter emits an extremely low signal, one that can only be picked up by something extremely close by, such as a receiver placed near the ignition switch of your vehicle. If you have a transponder key, the frequency from the key will be picked up by the receiver near the ignition switch, allowing the vehicle to start normally.