New York City Joins Lawsuit Against Kia and Hyundai Over Lack of Anti-Theft Measures
New York City is joining a lawsuit again car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai over a near-quadruple-digit percentage point increase in thefts of those brands of cars in the city.
NEW YORK – New York City is joining a lawsuit again car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai over a near-quadruple-digit percentage point increase in thefts of those brands of cars in the city.
The lawsuit claims the theft of vehicles spiked dramatically due to a lack of standard anti-theft measures. According to the Mayor’s Officer, due to the absence of sufficient anti-theft devices in Kia and Hyundai vehicles, New York City saw an 890% increase in Kia thefts at the end of last year and a 766 percent increase in Hyundai thefts in the preceding months.
"But what’s driving that increase this year," said Michael Lipetri, NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies, "Are the types of vehicles that are being stolen."
Mayor Eric Adams, along with the city's Corporation Counsel, say thieves are targeting models made between 2011-2021 that don't have standard anti-theft measures, such as an immobilizer system.
A TikTok challenge called the "Kia Challenge" has gone viral, with videos showing how easily a criminal can pop off the steering column and insert a screwdriver or even a USB into the ignition and drive away.
It's why the city is joining national litigation claiming negligence on the part of Hyundai and Kia.
"We’re going to hold Kia and Hyundai accountable for the public nuisance they’ve created and protect New Yorkers’ cars," Adams wrote.
"This is one of those instances where the lawyers are creating this maelstrom of litigation," said Randy Zelin, a trial attorney and adjunct professor at Cornell Law School. "But we're not seeing the forest for the trees. Because again, no one is addressing the true bad actors here which are the TikTokers that apparently found it amusing to teach thieves to be better thieves."
Kia and Hyundai responded to this report, saying that they have made free software upgrades and steering wheel locks available to millions of affected customers. Hyundai made engine immobilizers standard on all vehicles. Zelin says a successful lawsuit ensures what's already being done, while still not addressing the source of the crime.
"The only ones who are going to make out here are going to be the lawyers," Zelin said.
It is one of the most notorious and secret places in Iran.
Somewhere foreign journalists are never allowed to visit or film. The prison where dissidents and critics of Iran’s government disappear – some never to be seen again.
But we went there today, invited by Iranian authorities eager to show the damage done there by Israel.
Evin Prison was hit by Israeli airstrikes the day before a ceasefire ended a 12-day war with Iran. The damage is much greater than thought at the time.
We walked through what’s left of its gates, now a mass of rubble and twisted metal, among just a handful of foreign news media allowed in.
A few hundred yards in, we were shown a building Iranians say was the prison’s hospital.
Behind iron bars, every one of the building’s windows had been blown in. Medical equipment and hospital beds had been ripped apart and shredded.
Image: Debris scattered across what Iran says was the prison hospital
It felt eerie being somewhere normally shut off to the outside world.
On the hill above us, untouched by the airstrikes, the buildings where inmates are incarcerated in reportedly horrific conditions, ominous watch towers silhouetted against the sky.
Evin felt rundown and neglected. There was something ineffably sad and oppressive about the atmosphere as we wandered through the compound.
The Iranians had their reasons to bring us here. The authorities say at least 71 people were killed in the air strikes, some of them inmates, but also visiting family members.
Image: Authorities say this building was the visitor centre
Iran says this is evidence that Israel was not just targeting military or nuclear sites but civilian locations too.
But the press visit highlighted the prison’s notoriety too.
Iran’s critics and human rights groups say Evin is synonymous with the brutal oppression of political prisoners and opponents, and its practice of hostage diplomacy too.
British dual nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were held here for years before being released in 2022 in exchange for concessions from the UK.
Image: Inmates are held in building on a hill above, which has been untouched by airstrikes
Interviewed about the Israeli airstrikes at the time, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe showed only characteristic empathy with her former fellow inmates. Trapped in their cells, she said they must have been terrified.
The Israelis have not fully explained why they put Evin on their target list, but on the same day, the Israeli military said it was “attacking regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran”.
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The locus of their strikes were the prison’s two entrances. If they were trying to enable a jailbreak, they failed. No one is reported to have escaped, several inmates are thought to have died.
The breaches the Israeli missiles made in the jail’s perimeter are being closed again quickly. We filmed as a team of masons worked to shut off the outside world again, brick by brick.
A new Tesla prototype was spotted again, reigniting speculation among Tesla shareholders, even though it’s likely just a Model Y, potentially a bit smaller, and the upcoming stripped-down, cheaper version.
It sparked a lot of speculation about it being the new “affordable” compact Tesla vehicle.
There’s confusion in the Tesla community around Tesla’s upcoming “affordable” vehicles because CEO Elon Musk falsely denied a report last year about Tesla’s “$25,000” EV model being canceled.
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The facts are that Musk canceled two cheaper vehicles that Tesla was working on, commonly referred as “the $25,000 Tesla” in early 2024. Those vehicles were codenamed NV91 and NV92, and they were based on the new vehicle platform that Tesla is now reserving for the Cybercab.
Instead, Musk noticed that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y production lines were starting to be underutilized as the Company faced demand issues. Therefore, Tesla canceled the vehicles program based on the new platform and decided to build new vehicles on Model 3/Y platform using the same production lines.
We previously reported that these electric vehicles will likely look very similar to Model 3 and Model Y.
In recent months, several other media reports reinforced this, and Tesla all but confirmed it during its latest earnings call, when it stated that it is “limited in how different vehicles can be when built on the same production lines.”
Now, the same Tesla prototype has been spotted over the last few days, and it sent the Tesla shareholders community into a frenzy of speculations:
Electrek’s Take
As we have repeatedly reported over the last year, the new “affordable” Tesla “models” coming are basically only stripped-down Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
They might end up being a little smaller by a few inches, and Tesla may use different model names, but they will be extremely similar.
If this is it, which is possible, you can see it looks almost exactly like a Model Y.
It’s hard to confirm if it’s indeed smaller because of the angle of the vehicle compared to the other Model Ys, but it’s not impossible that the wheelbase is a bit smaller – although it’s hard to confirm.
Either way, the most significant changes for these stripped-down, more affordable “models” are expected to be cheaper interior materials, like textile seats instead of vegan leather, no heated or ventilated seats standard, no rear screen, maybe even no double-panned acoustic glass and a lesser audio system.
As previously stated, the real goal of these new variants, or models, is to lower the average sale price in order to combat decreasing demand and maintain or increase the utilization rate of Tesla’s current production lines, which have been throttled down in the last few years to now about 60% utilization.
If this trend continues, Tesla would find itself in trouble and may even have to close its factories.
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