California leads call for US recall of Kia and Hyundai vehicles with security issues

A coalition of U.S. attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta urged federal transportation officials Thursday to recall millions of Hyundai and Kia vehicles that are highly susceptible to theft due to a security vulnerability.

The state law enforcement leaders in a letter called for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to “institute a recall of unsafe Hyundai and Kia vehicles manufactured between 2011 and 2022 whose easily bypassed ignition switches and lack of engine immobilizers make them particularly vulnerable to theft,” Bonta’s office said in a news release.

The letter alleges that Hyundai and Kia vehicles between those model years — of which there are more than 8 million in the U.S. — violate federal requirements for vehicles’ starting systems, and that their “vulnerability to hotwiring and theft has created an unreasonable and well-documented risk to safety on U.S. roads.”

Thursday’s recall request comes one month after the coalition, made up of Bonta and 22 other states’ attorneys general, condemned Hyundai Motor Co. and its subsidiary Kia America and called for the South Korean automakers to take more urgent action to address the security vulnerabilities.

Hyundai and Kia said in statements Thursday that they are actively working to address the theft issues, but denied that their vehicles violate federal requirements.

Hyundai Motor America, based in Fountain Valley, wrote that its vehicles are “fully compliant with federal anti-theft requirements.”

“Thieves discovered a specific method by which to bypass the vehicles’ security features and then documented and promoted their exploits on TikTok and other social media channels,” the company said in an emailed response.

Hyundai and Kia are in the process of rolling out a software upgrade to address the security issue, but according to the coalition, it will not be available for many affected drivers until June and not at all for some of the 2011 to 2022 vehicles.

The software update won’t be available for about 600,000 Hyundai vehicles nationwide, as well as an “unknown” number of Kia vehicles, Bonta said during a live-streamed news conference in Berkeley.

Hyundai, however, said Thursday that it “fully rolled out” its software upgrade earlier this month, two months ahead of schedule. The company did not say how many vehicles now have the upgrades, which must be performed at a Hyundai dealership.

Officials in last month’s letter called the increasing thefts a “crisis,” urging the automakers to accelerate the software rollout and to provide free anti-theft measures to owners whose vehicles cannot support the update.

Some motorists are “struggling to obtain insurance for the affected vehicles,” according to Thursday’s news release. Progressive and State Farm reportedly stopped providing new policies for certain models of Kia and Hyundai earlier this year.

“Hyundai and Kia have given us no choice but to be here today to ask the federal government to step in and require a recall,” Bonta said Thursday.

Hyundai has launched a website, hyundaiantitheft.com, with information for affected drivers.

The website says the final round of its software upgrade rollout launched April 13, two months ahead of its initial estimate of June. The four rounds of upgrades are now available for about 3.8 million vehicles, the company says.

Irvine-based Kia America in a separate statement said: “Additionally, because there is no defect in the security features in any of these vehicles and because these specific models comply fully with all applicable federal standards, a recall is neither appropriate nor necessary under federal law.”

Kia in its statement said it has contacted more than 2 million owners and lessees notifying them of the available software upgrade, and that more than 165,000 have installed it to date.

“Kia remains very focused on this issue and we continue to take action to address the concerns these Attorneys General have raised.”

Hyundai in its statement said it is “communicating with NHTSA on our many actions to assist our customers.”

Thefts of Kia, Hyundai cars rose sharply in 2022

Citing statistics from local law enforcement agencies, Bonta’s office on Thursday said the theft rates for Hyundai and Kia vehicles have skyrocketed in California.

In Berkeley, where Bonta was set to announce the recall request in a news conference Thursday morning alongside interim Police Chief Jennifer Louis, Hyundai and Kia have made up 38% of the city’s vehicle thefts since late 2022, according to the attorney general’s news release.

Hyundai and Kia made up 20% of all vehicle thefts in the city of Los Angeles last year, the Los Angeles Police Department said, up from 13% in 2021.

“The bottom line is, Kia’s and Hyundai’s failure to install standard safety features on many of their vehicles have put vehicle owners and the public at risk,” Bonta said Thursday in a prepared statement. “Instead of taking responsibility with appropriate corrective action, these carmakers have chosen instead to pass this risk onto consumers and our communities.

“It is unacceptable that families and communities should be forced to shoulder the cost of Kia’s and Hyundai’s failures.”

In a vehicle recall, manufacturers “are required to fix the problem by repairing it, replacing it, offering a refund, or in rare cases repurchasing the vehicle,” according to the NHTSA. Most vehicle recalls “are made voluntarily by manufacturers prior to any involvement by NHTSA,” the agency says on its website.

Kia and Hyudai have said they have provided tens of thousands of free steering wheel locks to law enforcement agencies nationwide, which have distributed them in turn to Hyundai and Kia drivers.

The anti-theft software upgrades, which will be free to vehicle owners, were announced in February and will occur in phases, according to the NHTSA.

“The effort is in response to a TikTok social media challenge that has spread nationwide and has resulted in at least 14 reported crashes and eight fatalities,” the NHTSA said in a Feb. 14 news release.