so in effect baltimore is suing kia becuase their cars are getting stolen which is ridiculous.

i don't know how anyone can defend this.

this would be like baltimore suing banks for allowing customers to put in the pin "1234" after seeing a spike in money theft through ATMs.

if Baltimore wants the cars to be harder to steal, then they should work with the governor to pass a law that requires cars sold in Maryland to have whatever security functionality they deem necessary.

no. rather what would happen is that the bank would rightfully ask them to fix it or they would go with another manufacturer that meets their needs.

likewise, the government should increase the standard if they're not happy with it. not give the rubber stamp and still complain.

Baltimore didn't buy these cars.

I also wonder if auto insurance companies might refuse to insure Kia and Hyundai vehicles until this is fixed.

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.

It is a flawed design, but there’s just one problem for a lawsuit: Immobilizers are not legally required in the US. A flawed immobilizer is fine, considering there doesn’t even need to be an immobilizer.

Baltimore is suing because, yes, they are easy to steal and that makes things inconvenient for Baltimore. But no law was broken - there is no law requiring cars to be hard to steal. Thus they are trying to claim “public nuisance” instead of “negligence.”

This, in my mind, is a super slippery slope. You know parts pairing on iPhones, where you can’t swap the camera without Apple’s approval? One day there could be a carmaker or two that pairs everything from mirrors to catalytic converter to “prevent theft and fraud.” If Baltimore wins, anyone who doesn’t do that could be found liable. Just an extreme example of how this could go sideways fast.

Or let’s say two or three bike manufacturers start putting GPS systems into their bikes, to prevent theft. Can any bike manufacturer that doesn’t do that be sued in the future? I would argue, they should absolutely not be in absence of a law.

Baltimore, not being the customer, probably lacks standing.

Or perhaps they should have owners sign a release, promising not to operate or store the vehicle in any zip code that insurance companies deem high risk.

If you don’t like that, and I don’t, change the law. Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upscale neighborhood.

I don't understand this reasoning. The city believes there is already a law under which what the car manufacturer did is not legal. They and the car manufacturer will go in front of a judge where the city will need to prove this, while the lawyers of the car manufacturer will presumably argue otherwise.

Should I be feeling bad for Kia that they have to justify their choices?

But that's not what this case is about. To use your analogy, imagine KIA were a lock maker such as Kwikset. You bought their lock to install on your front door. You locked your door and left the house. You came back and your TV was gone, with no signs of forced entry. That's when you discover a major flaw in the design of the lock - if you turn the knob the opposite way then the lock will unlock from the outside. It's a flaw in the design. The lock maker is definitely legally liable for that defect, and, this is the important point, the city of Baltimore could sue them claiming damages incurred by having excessive police calls caused by their defective product. Of course every case is different, but Baltimore would be likely to win.

I'd say they're likely to win in this case as well. Since KIA has been aware of this problem for some time and taken no steps to resolve it, I imagine Baltimore is applying some financial incentive. As other cities take note they too may file their own suits and then KIA may realize it's cheaper and better PR to issue a massive and costly recall.

Now practically, whether it's legal or not, no one is going to help you.

To the extent that common law is generally adopted in the United States, theft is the intentional taking of the property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of said property. It doesn't matter whether there's forced entry or not (you may be thinking of burglary -- either way, principles of "constructive breaking" could still apply depending on the law as codified by a given jurisdiction).

Even from a less pedantic standpoint, if I had a home surveillance system that captured the entire incident on camera (along with the perpetrator's face and the license plate of the vehicle that he used to drive off with my TV), there is still sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute. There is no legal requirement of "signs of forced entry" to sustain a theft charge under these circumstances.

If the theft was part of a bigger issue with (to use the Kwikset hypothetical) the vendor's product defect allowing mass thefts then it would be important to the police.

This is not correct. The police will take a report, and your insurance (if you have it) will cover your TV even if you left the door wide open. Even if you were drunk. Even if you weren't drunk. There is no clause in standard insurance policies or our laws and statutes that failure to lock shit up somehow makes it free for anyone else to take.

The problem with Hyundai & Kia is that they elected not to include this 25 year old technology at all.