Chicago City Hall has filed suit against Kia and Hyundai, pinning much of the blame for the city’s plague of car thefts on the automakers’ refusal to install certain anti-theft systems in many of their vehicles.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the carmakers to pay potentially massive damages to cover the city’s costs in dealing with the fallout from the surge in car thefts since 2022, as well as to punish the automakers for alleged deceptive marketing under a city ordinance.
The city filed the lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court on Aug. 24.
The lawsuit centers on the surge in car thefts in the past three years driven largely by the so-called “Kia Boyz” phenomenon. So-called “Kia Boyz” car thieves have used viral online TikTok video tutorials to exploit a flaw in a range of Kia and Hyundai vehicle models manufactured from 2011-2022, which ordinarily rely on physical keys to start the vehicle.
Most other vehicles manufactured by other companies in that time frame included so-called engine immobilizer devices, which prevent a car’s engine from being started unless a driver uses a so-called “smart key,” embedded with a chip that sends a signal to deactivate the immobilizer.
However, most Kia and Hyundai models manufactured in that period did not include those immobilizers, which allowed thieves to hotwire the cars quickly and relatively easily, by removing a plastic cowl under the steering column and using a common USB cable to start the car.
Thieves often would then use the stolen vehicles for reckless and criminal behavior, often video recording themselves in the process, to generate views and likes on social media.
According to the complaint, since the onset of the “Kia Boyz” trend, vehicle thefts in Chicago have skyrocketed in the past two years, with thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles accounting for at least half of all car thefts in the city.
The complaint notes that Kia and Hyundai vehicles account for only about 7% of all vehicles on the road, but accounted for 41% of all vehicles stolen in 2022 in Chicago. Those numbers have only continued to rise this year, the complaint notes, with thefts of Kias and Hyundais accounting for 54% of all vehicle thefts in Chicago in July 2023.
The complaint asserts this has placed a heavy burden on Chicago’s police and other city services, while also taking a toll on low- and middle-income city residents who tend to own the entry level Kia and Hyundai models susceptible to the theft hack.
Further, the complaint blames Kia and Hyundai for also helping to fuel the rise of crime in Chicago more generally, as well.
“An increase in the incidence of automobile theft results in a substantial decrease in public safety,” the city argues in its lawsuit. “Car theft results in reckless driving, which poses a risk to both the operators of the stolen vehicles and any lawful users of the public thoroughfare who are unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. Thieves commonly use stolen vehicles to commit further crimes.”
The complaint asserts stolen Hyundais were used in “more than a dozen murders” from October 2022 to January 2023.
The list of criminal acts furthered by stolen Kias and Hyundais includes the murder of Chicago Police Officer Areanah Preston in May.
Further, the lawsuit claims Kia and Hyundai have done too little to address the problems with those susceptible vehicles, allegedly offering only “band-aid solutions,” such as software updates or anti-theft kits, which the complaint describes as “too little, too late.”
The city asserts the alleged refusal by Kia and Hyundai to first install the anti-theft immobilizers, and then allegedly to do too little about it, has create a “public nuisance” and amounts to “deceptive practices” and unfair trade practices under the city’s ordinances.
The city is asking the court to order Kia and Hyundai to “abate” the “public nuisance.”
But further, the city is asking the court to order Kia and Hyundai to:
- Pay unspecified restitution to consumers affected by car thefts;
- Release their “profits obtained through unfair and deceptive practices;”
- Repay the city for unspecified costs addressing the thefts; and
- Pay fines of up to $10,000 for each alleged offense under the city ordinances. Individual offenses are defined under the ordinances as “each day that a violation continues,” putting the automakers at risk of potentially massive payouts, should the case proceed to trial.
Edelson attorneys identified in the complaint as representing the city of Chicago in the action include David Mindell, Shantel Chapple Knowlton, Eve-Lynn J. Rapp and Jimmy Rock, of the firm’s offices in Chicago; Boulder, Colorado; and Washington, D.C.