New 2023 Police Data Shows the 20 Most Stolen Cars in Washington

Now we have the first official list of the most stolen cars in Washington State during the first half of 2023.

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Washington State: Huge Auto Theft Problem

It is no secret that Washington State has been leading the nation in the number of stolen cars per year for a while. In 2022, Washington State ranked 3rd out of all 50 states according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) 2022 report. It says that in 2022 a total of 1,001,967 vehicles were stolen nationwide with 46,939 of those coming from Washington State. That amount was a 31% staggering increase from 2021 which was the second-highest jump of any state in the union. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area also placed 6th nationwide for "Car Thefts in a Metro Area" with 30,572 during all of 2022. Now we have the first official data for the first half of 2023 and the numbers do not look good.

Washington State County Releases 2023 Car Theft Data

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department has released their stolen vehicle data for the first half of 2023 so far. The data covers from January through July of 2023 and has both the Make/Model and the number of cars stolen over that time. The scary thing is by their numbers, the amount of car thefts and car theft attempts for some brands has more than doubled since Q4 of 2022. One large concern is a large amount of Kia & Hyundai car thefts increasing in 2023. The data shows a combination of around 125 car thefts/attempts of those brands in Q4 2022 with a large jump to around 300 car thefts/attempts in Q2 2023. Both brands are known to have technical issues that make them easy to steal and have both released software updates to correct the problem. However, most owners are either not aware or are not choosing to update their software yet allowing for the problems to continue. Even if owners install the updates, these specific brands are being attempted to be stolen at a high rate. To help curb this behavior police recommend people "use a visual deterrent device, such as a steering wheel lock, to lessen their risk of becoming a victim".