A report published this summer in the International Journal of Forecasting, projects that thefts of the most vulnerable Hyundai and Kia models in Los Angeles will stay above normal levels through at least 2042, and will not drop to negligible levels until somewhere between 2043 and 2050. Therefore the splurge of Kia and Hyundai thefts will continue for quite some time.
The reason is not a hashtag or a video. It is arithmetic about used cars: how long a vulnerable vehicle stays on the road, who ends up owning it, and how stubbornly thieves remember what is easy to steal.
A Flaw Built Into Millions of Cars
The vulnerability at the center of the story is well known by now. For model years 2011 through 2022, Hyundai and Kia sold millions of vehicles with traditional turn-key ignitions and no engine immobilizer, the chip-based safeguard that keeps a car from starting without the right key. The authors of the new study, led by P. Jeffrey Brantingham of UCLA with colleagues from USC, Boston College and Justice & Security Strategies, describe the gap this way: from the 2011 model year, Hyundai and Kia sold 11 Hyundai and nine Kia models in the United States without immobilizers, and the automakers did not close the gap until the 2022 model year. StudyFinds’ summary of the paper adds that the exposed ignition switch resembled the end of a USB cable closely enough that a phone charger could start the engine.
The fallout was enormous. The National Insurance Crime Bureau data e shows the Hyundai Elantra climbing from sixth most-stolen vehicle in the country in 2022 to first in 2023, with nationwide thefts more than doubling. Many of the affected cars became close to uninsurable, a problem serious enough that Hyundai teamed with AAA to offer coverage.
The Twist: It Didn’t Start on TikTok
The most surprising finding in the paper is not the forecast but the origin story. The conventional account holds that viral videos from Milwaukee teenagers calling themselves the “Kia Boyz” set off a national wave. The researchers examined Los Angeles Police Department theft records going back to 2000 and found something different. Hyundai Sonata thefts in the city began climbing sharply in February 2021, according to the StudyFinds summary of the paper, and hit 94 in a single week that April, more than a year before the trend reached the national mainstream in the summer of 2022.
Using a statistical test of whether one trend helps predict another, the team found that rising Sonata thefts in Los Angeles came first, and that national Google searches for “Kia Boys” followed. The reverse did not hold. In the paper’s account, the surge appears to have begun during the pandemic lockdowns, spread through word of mouth, and become fully absorbed into ordinary offline theft patterns by the time social media interest peaked in 2022. By then, according to the same summary, weekly Sonata thefts in the city had risen from a pre-pandemic average near 37 to a single-week high of 134 in August 2022, before settling at a new baseline of roughly 91 a week.
The authors are careful not to overreach. They say they cannot prove social media played no role, only that in Los Angeles its influence appears to have been small. The distinction matters, because it changes the lesson. If the flaw spread by reputation among thieves rather than by a particular app, taking down a video would never have been enough.
The Honda Civic Precedent
To project the future, the researchers looked to the past. They studied two cars that were once notoriously easy to steal before automakers added anti-theft chips: the Honda Civic, fixed in 2001, and the Toyota Camry, fixed in 1992. In both cases, according to the paper’s summary, the unprotected older models remained attractive to thieves for 20 to 30 years after the fix, simply because they stayed in circulation until they were scrapped.
Applied to the Sonata, that pattern points to a long tail. Thefts of the vulnerable 2011 to 2019 models peaked around 2024, the researchers estimate, and will remain elevated until about 2042, with a projected total of nearly 16,000 thefts across those years. Brantingham put the conclusion plainly to the Los Angeles Times: “We’re likely to be seeing elevated thefts of these cars through 2042.”
The geography of the problem will also shift. In wealthier neighborhoods, owners trade in older cars quickly and the risk fades. In lower-income areas, vulnerable cars keep changing hands on the used market until the end of their lives, so the theft risk concentrates there. Brantingham told the Times he expects the problem to move from middle-class neighborhoods into poorer ones, and asked how many times a given Sonata will be stolen while it is still on the road. The researchers noted a similar migration in Vancouver, British Columbia, between 2003 and 2013.
What the Fixes Have, and Haven’t, Done
None of this means the automakers’ remedies failed. The Highway Loss Data Institute reported that vehicles with the free software update had 53 percent fewer theft claims than those without, and that whole-vehicle theft dropped by 64 percent, with about 60 percent of eligible vehicles updated as of July 2024. A later IIHS analysis put the reduction in claims at 46 percent, but noted that older vehicles are still being stolen heavily and that vandalism claims have risen, a sign that thieves are still trying and failing.
Nationally, the trend is good. The NICB reported that U.S. vehicle thefts fell 23 percent in 2025 to 659,880, the lowest level in decades, and that Hyundai and Kia models made up 14 percent of thefts, down from 16 percent in 2024 and, by some reports, 21 percent in 2023. Yet the Hyundai Elantra was still the most-stolen vehicle in America, with 21,732 thefts, and the Sonata and Kia Optima both placed in the top ten, according to figures reported by Nexstar stations. The Los Angeles metro area alone accounted for more than 53,000 thefts, according to NICB data.
The study’s own model suggests the remedies can only do so much. If the manufacturers complete recalls at typical historical rates, according to the StudyFinds summary, total thefts of vulnerable Sonatas could be cut by nearly half, but the long tail of elevated risk would shrink by only about a year. The reason is simple: a car that nobody brings in for the fix stays vulnerable until it is crushed.
The Legal Bill Keeps Growing
The courts are still working through the damage. A 2023 class-action settlement covering more than 9 million vehicles offered free software upgrades and other relief, and a settlement administrator’s notice says the Ninth Circuit affirmed final approval in full. In December, Hyundai and Kia agreed to pay $9 million to settle claims from 35 states, according to the Daily Journal, which also reported that the settlement did not release private claims such as those brought by insurers.
Those insurers got good news in September. In an opinion filed September 14 in In re Kia Hyundai Vehicle Theft, the Ninth Circuit revived claims by roughly 200 insurance companies against the Korean parent companies, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp., reversing a lower court’s dismissal on jurisdictional grounds. Insurers are seeking upward of $1 billion in payouts tied to the thefts. The ruling does not decide whether the Korean companies must stay in the case, the Daily Journal noted, only that the jurisdiction defense failed at this stage.
The Regulatory Gap Behind the Whole Saga
For the study’s authors, the deepest lesson is about regulation rather than social media. Unlike the United Kingdom and Australia, the summary of the paper notes, U.S. law never required automakers to install engine immobilizers as standard equipment, leaving a gap that an opportunistic crime market was bound to find. The paper’s implication is that requiring them earlier could have prevented much of what followed.
There is a caveat the authors state themselves. The model tracks only vulnerable Hyundai Sonata model years from 2011 to 2019 in Los Angeles, so it does not capture the full scope of Hyundai and Kia thefts nationwide, and it could not fully account for how many owners will actually take advantage of the free fixes. Your mileage, as ever, may vary.
For owners of an affected car, the practical advice has not changed. The IIHS-HLDI findings point to the software update as the baseline, and The Drive’s reporting suggests a visible deterrent such as a steering wheel lock for anyone parking where theft is common.