Across the country, many cities and counties are seeing an increase in electric car charging station cable theft. Criminals are taking advantage of all-time high copper prices, seeing the cables as a quick score.
Tesla-driving thieves fall victim to range anxiety.
According to Anthony Lambkin of Electrify America, one of the larger EV public charging station networks in the US, the company “has seen a little bit of an uptick in vandalism.” He said thieves seem to be targeting specific locations, cutting charging cables off sometimes multiple times a month, versus once every few months a couple of years ago.
In other words, thieves are becoming increasingly aggressive as they chop away for under $50 a cable. That might not sound like much money, but for what little work it takes to steal, apparently some of these guys think it’s worth the effort.
After all, catalytic converter theft has become incredibly common in certain cities, even though the guys out there cutting them off aren’t getting rich doing it. However, for victims the replacement costs are shockingly high, especially since the thieves cut off other parts of the exhaust system.
It’s a similar situation for the EV charging stations. Lambkin indicated replacing the snipped charging cables isn’t cheap.
Even worse, people who don’t have home chargers rely on the stations to keep their car battery topped off so they can get places. While for some in areas with a number of public charging stations this is no big deal, it’s debilitating for others.
We’ve seen this trend growing for a while and wonder if EV charging cable theft won’t just keep getting worse, similar to other car-related thefts. Likely they will in areas where law enforcement is swamped and/or prosecutors don’t take the thefts seriously.
Time will certain tell which way things go.
Image via Associated Press/YouTube
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Copper thieves strike again in CA, this time completely cleaning out a Tesla charging station in the Bay Area. Copper thieves are also the reason why the newly refurbished 6th Street bridge in downtown LA won’t light up. Wild stuff. pic.twitter.com/wsIBj7tls2
— LEAHmemes (@itsreallyleah) May 16, 2024
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