One saw. A billion dollar problem.

A growing problem

Our engineering team was introduced to the growing problem catalytic converter theft in 2022, while on one of our team members was security consulting contract. A business, well known in Dallas, had the “cats” from 14 trucks stolen in one night, which resulted in more than $70K in damage & repair costs, and thousands more in lost time while the trucks were repaired. This led us to look deeper into the problem and what we found was really interesting.

Precious Metals

Since around 2019, catalytic converter theft has rapidly increased as the value of the PGMS, or precious group metals within the cats, has also increased. Used in everything from computer chips to hybrid vehicles and electric vehicle fuel cells, these metals have only become more valuable over the years. Thieves, realizing the money to made, have been quick to get their hands on these metals in order to sell them to the highest bidder.

Gone in 120 seconds

With a reciprocating saw (seen in the picture above), also known as a “sawzaw”, thieves can saw off the part of the exhaust surround a catalytic converter in under 2 minutes. Sometimes even operating in daylight, they risk being caught for the chance at selling the catalytic converters, to be melted down and PGMs extracted, for anywhere between $500-$1500. PGMs are in higher amounts in hybrid vehicles, which makes the Toyota Prius and other hybrids choice targets. Though, trucks and vans with high-clearance heights are also prime targets.

Billions in damage

Not only has the problem increased in the US, it has increased all around the world. Climbing into the billions in damage, thefts are often times not covered by insurance, leaving consumers and business owners holding the bag.

An Engineer’s dream

Solving intractable issues is what engineers dream about. Upon discovering the problem and understanding the motives (and incentives) for why criminals steal ‘cats’, our team set out to create a solution.

Question 1: hardware or software?

As many of the solutions out there involve physical alterations underneath a vehicle, we set out to determine whether or not there was a more elegant solution. We wanted something secure and reliable, but also something that leveraged recent technological innovations. Given the democratization of hardware chips, rapid prototyping tools such as affordable 3D printers, and the open sourcing of machine learning algorithms, we decided to go with both: hardware to mount near the ‘cats’ and software to perform threat detection.