I'm curious, how theft-resistant are these cars? Has anyone had their Prius stolen, or heard of a Prius being stolen by someone who doesn't have the keys?
Not I. Ask your insurance company what the securty rating is. I looked up the Aussie rating and Prius scores 100/100 for resistance to theft of the vehicle and 42/100 for resistance to theft from the vehicle 72.5/100 overall score. http://www.racv.com.au/wps/wcm/resources/file/eb32640b859da30/2007_theft_score_results.pdf
I heard an [SIZE=-1]aprophical story of a theft where the guy took the SKS out of a purse that was lying on a table at a party and kept beeping the fob until a car answered. Other than that a thief is more likely to steal parts (like headlights) or put the whole car on a flatbed. [/SIZE]
That'd be true for any car with a key fob, not just a Prius. Anyone else ever find their car in the parking lot by pressing a button and listening for the horn?
A team of mathmeticians and computer science from Johns Hopkins University - and RSA Labs - figured out how to hack a commonly used RFID from TI by using a complex FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) matrix. Here is the article http://www.usenix.org/events/sec05/tech/bono/bono.pdf This may be 5 years from being a real threat. TI claims they are not worried, which should come as no surprise. At present, the Prius is one of the most theft-proof cars out there, certainly far better than a typical Chevy
Car theft is also a supply-and-demand business. More people want a hot Escalade than a Prius. Lots of the stolen cars get chopped into parts or shipped intact to other countries.
Prius with SKS need to have codes hacked twice. The first hack would only get the thief into the car. The second would be required to start the car while the (POWER) button is pressed. As it was explained to me here on Priuschat (my first ever thread), the Prius uses a rolling code such that the code used to access and unlock the car is not the same code used to start the car.
Someone is stealing them. Insurance Institute link to statistics by year by model. Prius ranks a 13 on stolen (very, very low - but not zero) HLDI: Insurance losses by make and model
Welcome to PriusChat, wolverine. Where on the IIHS site did you find your statistic? I found lots of loss data, showing Prius to be average or above average (good, see pics) but I couldn't find Prius theft data.
