Not necessarily. Lots of people keep their car keys on them when they fly, adding thousands of miles to their keys. What’s more- especially with older cars the odds of the key being original become less and less with age. Also, some cars have multiple sets of keys that are shared between drivers or switches between. Factor all of that in, and it’s perhaps as or more likely that the majority of car keys have traveled less far than the cars they go in.
To add to that- many newer cars have transponders (such as on cars with push button starts) and might have “back up” or “valet” keys which are commonly left st home or lost by many people. If we count the physical transponder device as a “key” still- the previous post still applies- but if we get technical- the transponder itself is not a key- the “key” would be data on the transponder that is recognized by the car. So we then must define wether we would consider the distance the electrons travel as the distance the “key” has traveled, or still consider it the physical distance of the transponder, or some formula combining the two- or something else. It also somewhat depends upon the protocol used by the car- as the “key” may be generated and destroyed each time it is used or checked against- which would make the “key” brand new each time you used it, and this VERY unlikely it would have traveled further than the car.
Lastly- let us consider the most modern generation of technology in which a smart phone is used to open and start a vehicle. The phone is not a “key” nor could we really argue the semantics that it is a key- as the phone itself is a phone. So in this case- the “key” is 100% digital IF we say a “key” for our purposes exists at all. If this key is authenticated against a server, or transmitted over a carrier network to the car- the distance the signal travels could be interpreted multiple ways and COULD equal a greater distance than the car has traveled....
But the same caveat on protocols applies as it did previously- wether a new “key” is generated each time or not, as well as wether a “key” is retrieved from a remote server and wether any data is saved about a state change or if the “key” is merely recalled and deleted- making the distance it can travel equal to the distance of transmission.
Wether Bluetooth or otherwise, if there is a wireless component to the transmission of the key to the car- we must define the ay in which we will equate transmission to linear distance as the signal is likely not linear.
Tl:dr- possible, but not definitive. Many factors could result in a car traveling further than its keys or vice versa. It’s highly unlikely in most scenarios that a car and its keys would have traveled the same distance beyond momentary fluke coincidence or meticulous and intentional action by an owner to ensure that both had traveled equal distances.
My appreciation for the compliment. It’s still a fun meme- and technically I didn’t disprove it, I just qualified it, as it IS possible for ones keys to have traveled farther than their car- not just possible, but likely fairly common. It is just merely also quite common for the opposite to be true. So I guess more than anything I analyzed it?
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