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I don’t see how putting a car key into the ignition and expecting the car to start could in any way be described as “faith”.

I have had situations in which that certainly was an act of faith! But in which case it was more hope than what Biblical faith is often shown to be, because the chances were just as good that it would not start. Like after i had completely sunk my father's car, or with a cold battery that was nigh unto death.

But contrary to the absurd atheistic definition of faith as only being that which is belief that is held with lack of, in spite of or against reason or evidence, in Scripture it can refer to belief based upon a degree of evidential warrant. And belief that a car will start today in cold weather has far more warrant than in earlier days.

Israel was not called to follow Moses because he simply promised hope and change and had a good speaking voice and had done some shepherding, but God gave abundant supernatural attestation of him before Moses lead them out, and even more before He called them into covenant.

Other examples abound, esp. in the ministry of Christ. The degree of evidential warrant is not always the same, but as in marriage, one makes a step of faith based upon varying degrees of warrant.

Even in the often-invoked case of Thomas who was told.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed, (John 20:29)

those who believed without physically seeing Christ after that had the testimony of radically changed changes, with heart and life effect which correspond to promises of Christ, contingent upon faith-obedience, and which effects testify to a supernatural cause.

Yet Scripture does not condemn what might be seen as blind faith, that of lacking any empirical evidence, as in the Lord calling Matthew to follow Him (of course, to utterly reject subjective impressions as possibly having warrant is not being objective), but what it teaches is that such faith will result in evidence. And so it does, as well as growing as one's faith in tested.

American biblical scholar Archibald Thomas Robertson stated that the Greek word pistis used for faith in the New Testament (over two hundred forty times), and rendered "assurance" in Acts 17:31 (KJV), is "an old verb to furnish, used regularly by Demosthenes for bringing forward evidence."^[20] Likewise Tom Price (Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics) affirms that when the New Testament talks about faith positively it only uses words derived from the Greek root [pistis] which means "to be persuaded."^[21]

British Christian apologist John Lennox argues that "faith conceived as belief that lacks warrant is very different from faith conceived as belief that has warrant." And that, "the use of the adjective 'blind' to describe 'faith' indicates that faith is not necessarily, or always, or indeed normally, blind." "The validity, or warrant, of faith or belief depends on the strength of the evidence on which the belief is based." "We all know how to distinguish between blind faith and evidence-based faith. We are well aware that faith is only justified if there is evidence to back it up." "Evidence-based faith is the normal concept on which we base our everyday lives."^[25]

Alvin Plantinga upholds that faith may be the result of evidence testifying to the reliability of the source of truth claims, but although it may involve this, he sees faith as being the result of hearing the truth of the gospel with the internal persuasion by the Holy Spirit moving and enabling him to believe. "Christian belief is produced in the believer by the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, endorsing the teachings of Scripture, which is itself divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. The result of the work of the Holy Spirit is faith."^{[26] -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality#Evangelical_views}