Tesla Cars Less Likely To Be Stolen, But German Competitor Beats Them

Any idea on which car is least likely to be taken by thieves?

The HLDI – or Highway Loss Data Institute – has records of about 85 percent of the insured vehicles in the US. We are repeating the very first information Matt Moore, senior vice president at HLDI, gives at the video above. But that is just to show they have strong numbers to support their studies. And they point Tesla vehicles are among the less likely to be ever stolen. Surprisingly, they are beaten in this ranking by a German competitor: the BMW 3 Series.

Before we go into the numbers themselves, it is important to check the methodology. HLDI has to sort the claims. Some of them are about objects stolen inside the car. Others, for stolen parts, such as the wheels. And there are the whole-vehicle claims, in which the cost of the claim exceeds the value of the vehicle. These were the focus of this study.

HLDI reached the conclusion that the average whole-vehicle theft claims were 0.27 per 1,000 insured vehicles. Anything equal to 0.27 is 100 percent. 

Then HLDI dived into the numbers of each model with a 2016 to a 2018 model year and made the relative claim frequency chart below. The lowest the number, the better.