From metal to mobile, the key has changed a lot over the years.

Volkswagen is a company that has the rare privilege of having built a car that is instantly recognizable anywhere in the world. We're speaking, of course, about the VW Beetle, a car that was immensely popular just about everywhere. These days, the Beetle is no longer on sale, but the Wolfsburg corporate machine marches on, with new vehicles like the Volkswagen ID.4 paving the way to a cleaner and better future. As VW's cars have evolved, so have the keys that control them, so Volkswagen has put together a little history lesson for us, showing just how things have changed from metal to mobile.

Volkswagen explains that, although car keys as a concept have existed since the early 20th century, the traditional metal key that could be used to turn on the ignition and start the car was first introduced in the late 1940s. Until the 1960s, some cars needed two separate keys: one for unlocking the doors and one to start the engine. Between the '50s and the '70s, VW designed 13 different key profiles or blanks for its vehicles, with each having a unique design and identifying two-letter code that corresponded with a particular lock. Some of these had a stamped VW logo while others had a cut-out emblem on the head of the key. This sort of basic design remained essentially untouched until the arrival of the keyless entry fob in the late 1990s.

Volkswagen explains where the new name came from: "Coined after the word 'fuppe,' which translates in German to pocket, the fob gave owners the ability [to] lock and unlock the doors of their vehicle by emitting a coded signal through radio waves to a receiver in the car. As technology increased, the fobs gained more functionality and could be used to open the trunk, activate the alarm system, and even start the car remotely." Germans also invented the switchblade key fob in the '90s which became "synonymous with most modern Volkswagen models."

"The key has come a long way," says former president of the Society of Automotive Historians, Louis Fourie. "From the lever and push-button start of early vehicles and the steering column lock on the early Beetles to the key fobs with a proximity feature and now mobile keys, the evolution of the car key has made it as convenient as can be for drivers."

In the early 2000s, the fob became a smart key that didn't need to be inserted into the ignition, making push-button start more and more popular once again. As clever as this is, everything eventually becomes obsolete, and the new ID.4 remote keyless entry fob is a good example of how far the key has come. Using We Connect ID, owners can remotely control things like the climate control and can check on things like charge level. Eventually, app-based car keys will mean that even the latest new car will not need a key fob, but even smartphones could become obsolete as a means of security, as various concepts suggest that facial recognition will become the norm for managing access to vehicles. Whatever the future holds, we've come a long way from the basic metal keys we remember from our childhood.