Dodge Charger Hellcat Is Still America’s Most Stolen Car and It’s Not Even Close
The Kia Boys may be giving it a run for its money, but Dodge’s muscle car remains the top target for thieves.
Thieves love Hellcats. From 2020 through 2022, thieves stole so many Dodge Charger Hellcats that data experts at the Highway Loss Data Institute (a branch of the IIHS) were truly shocked. “If you own a Hellcat, you better check your driveway,” said HLDI Senior Vice President Matt Moore in a recent study.
According to HLDI, there were 6,128 Charger Hellcat theft claims during the aforementioned two years. That's 255 claims per month over 24 months, and almost three times the number of claims filed for the second-most stolen car: The Dodge Charger (with a Hemi), which had a total of 2,197 claims.
But how about the third? The Infiniti Q50, which racked up 878 claims. The average theft claim count per car, between 2020 and 2022, was 100. This means the Charger Hellcat was stolen more than 60 times more frequently than average. HLDI highlights that these numbers are for whole-vehicle theft claims and don't factor in claims for stolen parts like wheels or catalytic converters.
Unfortunately, things are only getting worse. Between 2017 and 2019, the most stolen car was the Infiniti Q60, which averaged two thefts per 1,000 insured vehicle years (a metric commonly used to rank performance in an environment). The Charger Hellcat averaged 25 thefts per 1,000 insured vehicles years between 2020 and 2022.
Conversely, the least stolen cars during that same time were the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, with only three claims each. It's unclear why Teslas were stolen so infrequently, but it could be Sentry Mode or perhaps the fact that they are so connected and can be easily tracked. Or maybe Teslas just aren't desirable to thieves. However, electric vehicles seem to rarely get stolen, which makes sense because there just aren't nearly as many of them as regular cars.
So if you have a Charger Hellcat or really any big V8-powered Dodge muscle car, you might want to visit your local dealer for some additional theft prevention: the company offers a free software upgrade called Key Programming Lockdown to combat unauthorized key fob duplication for Chargers and Challengers dating back to model-year 2015.
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