The most popular car in Germany is the Range Rover Velar! The big but follows immediately: Because the luxury SUV from Land Rover was not the absolute top in 2020, but in the statistics of the most stolen cars. In 2020, an average of 15.5 out of 1000 approved Velar were stolen. Also very popular with thieves on German roads: the SUV crossover X6 from BMW (9.0 stolen models per 1000 vehicles), Kia’s sports sedan Stinger (6.7) and another car from Land Rover, the premium SUV Range Rover (5.9).
Amazing: Three models from Toyota landed in fifth to seventh place – after the SUV NX from Edel subsidiary Lexus, the rustic Landcruiser off-road vehicle and the plug-in hybrid van Prius + follow. The top ten are completed by the Porsche 911 sports car, Ford’s Edge SUV and another BMW, the X5 luxury SUV.
VW before Audi and BMW
If you look at the absolute numbers, no brand was stolen more often than Volkswagen. 1780 cars from Europe’s largest car manufacturer were reported as stolen in 2020. This is followed by vehicles from Audi (1360), BMW (1325) and Mercedes (1127). In the whole of 2020, 10,697 vehicles were stolen across Germany. That is 25 percent less than in 2019 and an arithmetical 29 cars a day.
Although thefts have decreased due to the pandemic, the amount of damage for insurance companies has increased. Because more and more expensive cars are being stolen, the insurers had to shell out an average of more than 20,000 euros per vehicle for the first time. According to the General Association of the German Insurance Industry, car thefts caused damage totaling 214 million euros.
Berlin is the theft capital
The risk for drivers of being victims of theft in Germany is particularly high in Berlin: with 2,267 car thefts, more than every fifth car is stolen in the federal capital! Thieves also strike often in Leipzig and Hamburg. The risk of car theft is significantly lower in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, which border on Switzerland: only 905 cars were stolen here in 2020 – not even half as many as in Berlin!
Thieves are also into luxury
No current figures are known from Switzerland about the most popular brands and models among car thieves. In the last survey in 2019, however, a similar picture emerges as that of our northern neighbor. In this country too, VW is in first place among the most stolen brands. However, if you look at the number of thefts per 1,000 insured cars, thieves in Switzerland are particularly fond of luxury brands.
The chance of being a victim of theft as a Land Rover or Porsche owner is three times higher than the average. Vehicles from the British luxury brand Bentley are even four times more likely to be stolen than the average. Also popular with car crackers: Alfa Romeo, Lotus and Rolls-Royce. As the owner of a Suzuki, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, you had less to worry about in the past: With them, the probability of theft was only half the average.