Car Thieves avoiding Toyota Prius

Here is a link to the actual report.

https://www.nicb.org/File%20Library/Public%20Affairs/Toyota-Prius-Thefts-ForeCAST.pdf

NICB is an insurance fraud prevention organization. Not sure what prompted them to create this report. Are Prius involved in a disproportional number of insurance fraud schemes?

 

Probably the thieves are too stupid to figure out how to put them in gear. Or their fellow thieves will laugh at them for driving a hybrid.

 

Because of the relative newness of the hybrid powertrain, I suspect auto insurance actuaries have been studying the Prius carefully to correctly set premiums. When a news story pops up that the Prius is the top selling car in CA, it makes sense that they wanted to investigate theft losses to see if they are tracking with sales.

 

There are only 3 ways to steal a Prius.

1) Find one left in READY mode, and drive away
2) Find the keys to one, find the matching car, and drive away
3) Flatbed/Tow it

It is not a car that you can break a window, short a couple wires together and go. Even some of the newer chipped cars can be bypassed easily by turning the fuel pump on with a short, running the starter with a jumper, and forcing 12v into the ignition circuit. You can't do that with a Prius...

 

The modern car thieves open engine bay, disconnect ECU, plug in a laptop simulating ECU with software or hacked ECU and drive away. I'm sure it's possible in Prius too, but not enough market to be cost effective to develop the software.

 

Newer Toyota ECU's are too tough to crack, (applies to Lexus too) that's why the ISF never caught on with too many tuning companies..That's what my friend who use to do encoding for Cobb tuning told me.

 

It's the best-selling car in California, so there's a market. And the Prius has a lot of expensive, bolt-on parts, such as inverter, transaxle, and traction battery.

 

Interesting. How would one unlock the steering wheel?

 

The Prius steering wheel is not locked.

 

We are talking modern, push button cars. I agree the old fashioned key was a better solution.

 

No, hlunde means those modern expensive cars which has steering wheel lock.

 

Maybe there just isn't a large enough market for second-hand Prius parts. Reliability is pretty high.

 

I would agree with this. Another thing to consider, these cars are fairly new and mostly covered by warranties. There is also a steady supply of wrecked Prius cars with their used parts.

 

I am quite pleased that thieves are not interested.

 

Me too.

If thieves aren't interested in my car, then my insurance rates will keep lower. Great

 

It is locked. About 1 minute after power-off. Electric-mechanical lock is applied.

 

At this moment, mine has been powered off for 56 hours, and it is still not locked.

Are US and European models different in this regard?

 

A clue to thief behavior is that the 1994 Honda Accord is the most stolen car. I can't see how re-selling the thoroughly worn parts from a 1994 could ever make this theft worthwhile. So is the incentive the ease of stealing and the use of the vehicle?

America’s Most Stolen Car Is… - ABC News