FBI: Car theft numbers on the rise in 2017

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Auto theft is up across the nation, according to the FBI.

"I attended a comedy show and I came out and my car was missing,” said Eric Willis. "I thought that cars would be harder to steal with the automatic push starts."

Think again.

Auto theft had been trending downward for the last 20 years, but 2017 showed an alarming uptick. An estimated 773,139 thefts of motor vehicles happened nationwide in 2017. 

That's about 237 car thefts for every 100,000 people, and it's a number that is up more than 10 percent from 2013. 

Everything is relative. If you compare 2017 with 2008, auto theft rates are actually down more than 19 percent.

According to the FBI, auto thefts costing about $6 billion in 2017. That's a pretty penny the thieves are getting away with.