Hyundai’s efforts in Houston come after a spate of car thefts

Hyundai technicians delivered anti-theft technology to nearly 1,700 drivers in Houston this weekend, but public safety officials still face an uphill battle after a 15% increase in car thefts in the city between 2022 and 2023.

Houston police received about 54 reports of stolen vehicles per day in 2023, according to data from the department’s monthly crime logs. A total of 80,739 car thefts were reported between 2019 and 2023, part of a national increase.

Public safety experts and automakers say the unique design of certain Kias and Hyundai models is helping fuel the increase because it makes them easy to steal with a USB drive — something Hyundai officials say they want to combat.

MORE FROM HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Hyundai owners can receive a free anti-theft system upgrade at Greenspoint Mall this weekend

“Hyundai is committed to the comprehensive actions we are taking to help customers and communities affected by the ongoing thefts of certain 2011-2022 model year vehicles that are not equipped with push-button ignition and immobilizers,” said Ira Gabriel, spokesperson for Company. . “Hyundai has responded with extensive initiatives to improve the safety of immobilizer-less vehicles still on the road.”

Marc Levin, chief policy advisor for the Council on Criminal Justice, said Kias and Hyundais accounted for about 52% of car thefts nationwide in 2023, a number that has increased 1,000% since 2020.

Upgrades to Kias and Hyundais appeared to influence changes in car thefts through the first months of 2024, Levin said. As of March, a GM pickup led the state in stolen reports, although Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima also ranked in the Top 6 most reported stolen cars, according to Levin data.

Overall, however, the number of car thefts in Texas had not changed much from 2023 to 2024, Levin said.

Gabriel said all 1,700 attendees at the company’s pop-up received steering locks over the weekend. All but 37 received some combination of a software upgrade, a protective cover for the ignition cylinder or were found to already have an immobilizer or anti-theft software.

Those that were not upgraded were a mix of out-of-age models, between 2011 and 2022, or were not Hyundai vehicles, Gabriel said.
The company has slowly ramped up its capacity to install the software and cylinder safeguards in recent months, Gabriel said. In addition to Houston, business engineers have held multi-day software installation clinics in cities including Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, El Paso, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Grand Rapids, Michigan, will be the latest city to host an event this week, Gabriel said.

As of April 22, the company has installed anti-theft technology on more than 1.2 million affected vehicles, Gabriel said.

Houston police data shows that car thefts fell slightly in the first two months of 2024. Up to and including February 29, approximately 2,965 incidents have been reported (an average of 49.4 per day). Sergeant Tracy Hicks, of the vehicle crime task force, said he was proud of the work he had done all weekend and believed such measures would make it harder for vehicles to be stolen in Houston.

By early April, Houston police had assigned about 57 of its 5,200 sworn personnel to the vehicle crime unit, according to data obtained by the Chronicle. But not all of those 57 were researchers.

A November 2023 article in Vice found that, due to a 2007 measure in Canada that required automakers to equip all vehicles with an anti-theft device, the country has not seen an increase in thefts like the United States.