The fallout from the TikTok “Kia Challenge”
Lesson summary
Hi there, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English lesson number 581. Here at Plain English, we help you upgrade your English with stories about current events and trending topics. When were you ever going to learn the word “engine immobilizer” if not on Plain English?
JR is the producer. He has uploaded the full lesson content to PlainEnglish.com/581. That is where you can find the transcript of today’s lesson. You’ll also get our video lesson, exercises, translations and more. PlainEnglish.com/581.
Coming up today: We’ll continue the story from Monday about a social-media inspired crime spree. Over 8 million Hyundai and Kia cars sold in the U.S. have a shocking vulnerability : with just a USB cable, you can steal the car. It’s all on TikTok. And the thefts have wide ranging effects, on innocent bystanders, on police forces, insurance companies, auto body shops, not to mention the car owners who fall victim.
In the second half of the lesson, we’ll spend some time reviewing the expression “spend time.” And JR has a song of the week from Tina Turner. Here we go.
Social media-inspired crime spree has wide-ranging effects
On Monday, you heard that social media videos showed just how easy it is to steal a Kia or a Hyundai. For model years between 2011 and 2022 without a push-button ignition, you can steal a car with a USB cable in about 30 seconds.
The popularity on TikTok and YouTube has led to a dramatic increase in thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles—some cities experiencing an 800 percent increase in thefts of these cars. This is a crime spree in the age of social media—and it affects more people than you think.
Let’s start with the most obvious: the personal impact on the victims themselves . Having a car stolen is inconvenient at best. People have to scramble to make arrangements to get to work; that means paying for rental cars and Uber rides. Others have lost valuables that were in the car—musical instruments, computers, documents, luggage, things like that. As you heard on Monday, some people have had their cars stolen multiple times. They’ve had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket on rental cars and Uber rides—all costs not covered by their insurance.
But this is only the beginning. The TikTok-inspired thefts have two parts: the theft of the car and the reckless driving after the fact. Police videos show stolen cars swerving through quiet residential streets, crashing into highway barriers, hitting other cars, and more. It’s common for groups of teenagers to steal a car; then, some passengers hang out the window while the driver speeds through town. When the joyride is over, and the car is destroyed, they abandon it on the street.
This is not safe. In Buffalo, New York, six teenagers stole a Kia and subsequently crashed the car; four of them, including a young mother, were killed in the crash. In St. Paul, a city in Minnesota, a 70-year-old woman was killed after a stolen Hyundai crashed into her vehicle; the drivers fled the scene.
In February, in Baltimore, a man driving a stolen Hyundai was fleeing police when he crashed into another car, hit a pedestrian, and then crashed into an abandoned building; the building then came falling down on top of them. The pedestrian died. There are other instances of injuries and damage to property that occurs after a Kia or Hyundai theft.
Local law enforcement is furious. Car theft is a serious crime. Every time it happens, police take a report and investigate; prosecutors’ offices often bring charges. If the car is wrecked and abandoned, the city has to clean up the crime scene. The time police spend investigating these car thefts is time they’re not spending on other pressing community matters.
And people who steal cars go on to commit other crimes, too. The mayor of New York says that car theft is driving shootings and crime in the city, and that Kias and Hyundais are driving car theft. He’s giving out Apple AirTags for people to put in their cars. But this doesn’t address the main problem. The cars are often wrecked and abandoned after a few hours anyway.
Insurance companies are affected, too. Auto insurers estimate their total cost from this debacle is $500 million to $600 million. Two large insurance companies have decided to stop writing new policies on affected cars, though they’ll continue to honor the policies they’ve already established.
What are Kia and Hyundai doing? Both carmakers are offering a software upgrade that would stop theft of this kind. The new software would not allow the car to start unless there’s a key in the ignition, bypassing the USB hack in the steering column. It takes about an hour to install at the dealership and this update is free to owners. They started installing the update in February and it appears to be working.
Over 8 million cars are susceptible to theft in this way. So far, 600,000 have received the software upgrade, or about one in thirteen. But getting an upgrade to eight million owners will be difficult. Not everyone lives near a dealership, not everyone will hear about it, not everyone will be motivated to get the upgrade.
And it won’t solve the problem of break-ins. A thief might identify an older model Kia or Hyundai, break the window, and try to steal it; even if the thief can’t steal the car, it’s still a shattered window. Kia is offering stickers to put on windows to deter thieves—the stickers say the car has been repaired to prevent theft.
The carmakers are also offering steering wheel locks for law enforcement to pass out to owners. State attorneys general are urging the federal government to issue a recall of the vehicles. They accuse Hyundai and Kia of negligence, saying they put a car on the road that’s easy to steal. They think the carmakers are responsible for the crime spree and they should pay for the fallout.
Meanwhile, the process to fix damaged cars is a nightmare. When a stolen car is recovered, it has to be repaired. And the missing parts are the same on all recovered cars—the cover on the steering wheel column, for example, or the windows. A lot of these cars were made ten years ago: dealers don’t have a lot of extra steering wheel column covers in a warehouse for cars that were made ten years ago. So there’s a backlog of these parts. Plus, with a rapid increase in shattered glass and damaged body panels, many body shops simply can’t repair cars right away—there can be a three- or even six-month wait before they can get the parts they need.
Financially, Kia and Hyundai are already starting to pay. They recently agreed to pay $200 million to settle a class-action lawsuit among owners. Insurance companies are suing the carmakers for their own losses—that’s the $500 million number I cited before. Then, there’s the cost of the repairs and steering wheel locks and software upgrades.
They’re also monitoring social media for any new videos that glorify or show the car thefts. They petition YouTube and TikTok to take down offending videos—it’s against the terms and conditions of both platforms to promote crime. But like so many things in digital media, once it’s out there, it’s out there.
For now , the controversy doesn’t appear to be damaging the brands’ sales of new vehicles. The thefts have been going on since 2021, but consumers are still buying new Hyundai and Kia vehicles—the new ones, after all , don’t have the ignition problem. Hyundai says it expects the combined companies’ sales to increase 10 percent in 2023.
Will it blow over?
Will this blow over ? I don’t know, I doubt it—it’s not like people are going to forget how to break into the cars. I think Kia and Hyundai will have to figure out how to reach those other 7.4 million car owners to get the safety update, or they’ll continue to face a backlash from police departments and politicians.
Everyone blames Kia and Hyundai. I guess; they did cut corners . Maybe just reserve a little blame for the people who are actually stealing the cars?
Learn English the way it’s really spoken
