It was absolutely predictable that these cars would be stolen and that the police would have to deal with the fallout. Just because there's no explicit law does not mean that Kia doesn't know better. Kia needs to pay for that.
If I owned one of these defective cars, I'd also be keen on participating in a lawsuit against the company.
If these cars had a defect that caused them to suddenly catch fire and burn down neighborhoods, you'd bet there would be lawsuits from everyone, including cities who pay for fire departments.
Well, the government does already set a bunch of standards for cars.
And before the car leaves the factory, it's fine for the government to be issuing mandatory standards for lights, spare parts, seatbelts, crash safety, pedestrian protection, fuel economy and so on.
But the government having a second, secret set of requirements? That can change without anyone being notified? To me that seems rather irregular.
To me, that seems like a responsible way to react to an irregular situation.
Affected owners should put together a class action and force a recall on the affected cars. As for those who actually got their cars stolen - they should take that up with the police and their insurance.
Not making excuses for Kia. They should absolutely get penalties for taking shortcuts. But I feel that higher insurance premiums and a bad reputation would take care of it. And people won’t buy their cars.
Yes. In numerous cities the car theft rate has gone way up in the last couple of years, in some doubling or more, with something like 95% of the increase being thefts of these particular Kia and Hyundai models.