Kia and Hyundai cars have been plagued for years by vulnerabilities—and simply missing protective features—in their antitheft systems that make the cars far too easy to steal. Recently, the companies have been attempting to distribute updates to remedy the situation, but the flaws have already resulted in skyrocketing car theft rates around the United States. New data from 10 US cities compiled by Motherboard through public records requests illustrate the extent of the problem. In Chicago, for example, average car theft rates of about 850 per month are now consistently up to more than 2,000 per month. Similarly, before 2021, rates in Denver used to hover around 800 stolen cars per month. They now typically top 1,000. Atlanta's car theft rates have doubled from their old level before 2022 of fewer than 250 incidents per month.

“Stolen car rates are not up by 10 percent, or 20 percent, or even 50 percent,” the report says. “In many cities, they are up hundreds of percentage points, Motherboard has found. Rates of stolen Kias and Hyundais in particular are up thousands of percentage points.”