UCLA model forecasts Los Angeles Kia thefts continuing through at least 2042

The 2042 date falls out of when the cars were built. Kia and Hyundai left engine immobilizers out of 20 models from 2011 through 2022 ^[3], twelve model years of vehicles ^[2], and the study puts a car's working life at perhaps 20 to 25 years ^[8]. Add 20 years to the last vulnerable model year and you land on 2042; add 25 and you land on 2047, near the study's outer horizon of 2050 ^[1].

Without an immobilizer, stealing one of these cars is a low-skilled job: pull off the steering wheel casing, expose the starter, turn the ignition with a USB cable ^[4]. During lockdowns, cars sat on the street for long stretches and school and business closures gave young people unstructured time to experiment ^[7].

The videos came after. Brantingham's team reports that in Los Angeles the vulnerability was discovered without the help of social media, and the same was true in Denver and in Milwaukee, where the "Kia Boys" posts originated ^[6]. Print and cable news coverage was among the significant initial factors, alongside the lockdowns and the manufacturers' production decisions ^[5]. Brantingham said social media is good at creating experts when the skill required is relatively low ^[16]. Even the clips with no instructions in them, just joyriding, told inexperienced thieves that these models opened in minutes ^[17].

The part of the paper I find most useful for anyone planning around this is the geography. New cars sell in more affluent areas, get held a couple of years, then enter the used market and move toward less affluent ones as they depreciate and change hands ^[9]. "For people living in those less affluent areas, the crime hotspot comes to them," said Brantingham ^[10]. Put another way, he said, this is not about criminal offenders moving from one area to another; it is about the ripe criminal targets moving ^[11].

That claim rests on a market process and a historical pattern, not on an experiment. Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys were frequently stolen in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and the researchers say the Kia and Hyundai models will follow the same path ^[12]. The forecast itself is a Los Angeles forecast built on Los Angeles Police Department data ^[2], while the surge that began in 2020 spread nationwide ^[14]. The write-up does not report insurance losses, or how recall uptake enters the model.

So the honest reading is narrower than the headline number and more durable than a trend. Whether elevated theft persists in Los Angeles to 2050 depends on how fast recalls, wheel locks and trade-ins strip vulnerable cars out of the fleet; whether the vulnerability persists does not, because it was designed in and can only be removed one car at a time. Brantingham's advice to owners of a Hyundai Sonata, a Kia Optima or one of 18 other models in those lines is a steering wheel locking device, a manufacturer recall, or a trade-in for a car with an engine immobilizer ^[13].