![]() "We thought that Kia and Hyundai might take some type of corrective action to prevent further harm," he said, either by issuing a recall of the affected cars or offering compensation to victims. Jonathan Michaels, a lawyer at MLG Attorneys at Law in California, who is representing Lebeau-Chorn, said his firm had been watching the situation unfold since the Kia Challenge took off in the middle of last year. The suits were recently consolidated into one case in California, the home of the two manufacturers' American headquarters. Davison is one of the lawyers who has filed a class-action suit against the manufacturers (one lawyer estimated several dozen such lawsuits existed across the country). "What really has happened is that Kia and Hyundai chose to cut corners in cost in their least-expensive models in a period of years," she told me. ![]() Neither Kia or Hyundai have explained why their vehicles didn't have this safety feature.Īnn Davison, the Seattle city attorney, acknowledged TikTok's role in the theft spree but placed the underlying blame on the car companies themselves. While the US does not mandate the tech, electronic immobilizers have been common since the late 1990s, when the European Union mandated them for all new cars sold there. In 2015, 96% of vehicles from other manufacturers had immobilizers, but only 26% of Kia and Hyundai cars did, according to a Highway Loss Data Institute report. So far there's been no recall on the already-compromised models, though Kia and Hyundai both noted in statements to Insider that they are providing steering-wheel locks to affected car owners through some police departments - in Kia's case, 23,000 locks to over 120 departments nationwide.īut many people have questioned why the companies didn't have such a standard feature in their cars in the first place. In response to the crime wave, Kia added immobilizers to their 2022 models, and Hyundai has added them to cars built since November 2021. Both the Seattle and Los Angeles police departments put out notices tying the trend to the TikTok challenge. And in Portland, Oregon, the number of stolen Kias increased by 916% from January 2022 to January 2023, while Hyundai thefts jumped by 768%. In Chicago, 1,000 Kias were stolen in October alone. In Seattle, thefts of Kias and Hyundais increased by 363% and 503%, respectively, between 20. While there's no federal database of thefts by specific model, the numbers in large cities are staggering. The simplicity of this "hack" led to a huge surge in thefts of the cars. Without that system, anyone could unscrew the steering column in the older Kias and Hyundais and insert a USB into the ignition before driving away. Cars with this tech won't start unless they recognize the correct key, making them far more difficult to hot-wire. The cars from that time don't have electronic immobilizers, a safety device that uses a unique chip in the key fob. The TikTok video that sparked the challenge - a how-to reportedly created by user - exposed a security flaw in Kia models from 2011 to 2021 and Hyundai models from 2015 to 2021. The trend has become not just a financial burden for consumers and a legal nightmare for Kia and Hyundai, but has spotlighted what happens when a business cuts corners: It's often the people least responsible who bear the burden. ![]() And dozens of class-action lawsuits filed around the country are attempting to force the manufacturers to either issue a recall or fix the cars' vulnerability. The situation has become so critical that two major auto-insurance companies, State Farm and Progressive, have stopped insuring vulnerable Kia and Hyundai models. While the video was quickly taken down by TikTok each time it resurfaced, the damage was done: 70% of the cars stolen in Milwaukee last year and 50% of the cars stolen in Chicago this year were from the two South Korean manufacturers. ![]() The "Kia Challenge" video, which first appeared in 2021 and regained popularity in July 2022, showed how to easily hijack certain models of Kia and Hyundai vehicles using only a USB cord. The cause of this wild car-theft spree? A viral TikTok. Other major metro areas across the country - New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles - have seen similar increases. Louis, they spiked 157% from the second half of 2021 to the second half of 2022. ![]() In Milwaukee, car thefts have doubled since 2020. Lebeau-Chorn and Jenkins are just two victims of an unprecedented surge in car thefts that has swept across US cities in the past two years. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. ![]()
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