[Zach_the_Lizard]

The last two methods--disabling ignition and disabling fuel injection--can be defeated by bringing your own ECU and / or other chips so that your key unlocks everything.

That could even be quick, depending on the make and model of the car.

The next step is to make all components work only if they can verify the ECU is the right one via the cryptographic solution du jour.

But this also complicates replacing wear components like coil packs, which now have to be tied to a specific vehicle, and can be defeated with enough part swaps anyways.

Physical security is hard.

[PaulHoule]

There are different segments of car thieves.

There are some sophisticated gangs that are stealing the cars and chopping them for parts or shipping them to South Africa.

Then there are people who steal cars for fun.

The later are easy to deter with technical measures, the former much harder.

Personally I think there ought to be a "tough love" conversation with certain German carmakers about how they sell parts with the possible endpoint of them being kicked out. German cars are overpriced and unreliable and they seem now to be planning gas cars for centuries after the rest of the world moves on. If European car brands were excluded from international trade I think that would make the world better and not worse.