Couldn’t a kid “borrow” their parent’s ID for the age verification? Isn’t it just as pointless today?

A good chunk of that reason could simply be numbers. Tesla sold over 5m vehicles, but Leaf was only at 600k in early 2022 (not sure how many have been made since then).

Edit: Got a closer data point for Tesla, they were at 2.3m at the end of 2021.

You can also “jump” the car to open it via a 12V access port in the front.