Cars Are Too Easy to Steal

I don't agree that cars are too easy to steal. Two reasons:

(a) As the article points out, this conclusion is political scapegoating by politicians who don't want to take the heat for rising crime, so they're blaming Kia and Hyundai. Social unrest is a problem, and placing blame on the manufacturer of the stolen items is... not really addressing the problem.

(b) I will probably be downvoted first this, but I think security is taken too far in some contexts. What is the threat model, in terms of mechanism, type of loss, severity, and likelihood? Is it more likely that I'm going to lose irreplaceable photos because someone steals my phone (has never happened), or because I forget my new password and lock myself out (has happened twice in 15 years - luckily I backup often)?

In this case, car thefts are generally rare, and they're covered by insurance. The possibility of a phone-home system from manufacturers being used to hurt me, e.g., by disabling and ransoming functionality I paid for [https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/12/22831105/toyota-subscrip...] seems much higher, and there is no insurance product that covers it.

As long as the risks of being caught stealing a car (deferred jail time after pleading down to unlawful use) don’t outweigh the benefits (scrapping for parts/selling to unscrupulous dealers/using to commit other crimes), car theft will continue unabated. I don’t really blame the thieves, junkies gonna junkie, I blame the weak as fuck DAs who see every crime as a reason to tut-tut the bourgeoisie for literally forcing the proletariat to commit crimes.