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Thieves hunting for copper are vandalizing EV chargers
Financial Post ^ | September 23, 2024 | Kyle Stock and Tope Alake

Posted on 09/24/2024 11:23:35 AM PDT by Red Badger

Nearly 20% of U.S. public charging attempts ended in failure, with roughly 10% of those aborted sessions were due to a damaged or missing cable

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Rick Wilmer spends most of his work days at the office. But every so often, the chief executive officer of ChargePoint Holdings Inc. will make his way to the company’s laboratory in San Jose, Calif., where he dons safety glasses and wields an array of saws and shears against EV chargers. The goal: to approximate the rash of vandalism sweeping the 65,000 U.S. cords under ChargePoint’s care.

“It’s all over the country,” Wilmer says. “The types of stuff we’ve seen happen is just horrifying in terms of the way they go about it and how frequently it happens.”

ChargePoint isn’t alone. This year through June, nearly one in five U.S. public charging attempts ended in failure, according to JD Power; roughly 10 per cent of those aborted sessions were due to a damaged or missing cable. While some of the destruction is without agenda — the same spray-paint and baseball-bat havoc that affects vending machines and delivery robots — charging executives say much of the damage has a specific, profit-based motive: copper.

There have been similar reports of vandalism in Europe, and in May Instavolt Ltd. — a U.K. charger operator — warned of a crackdown on cord theft. But the mayhem comes at a particularly tough time in the U.S., where sales of electric cars are flagging. A reliable charging network is key to dousing drivers’ range anxiety, and charging companies are eager to disabuse EV-skeptical consumers of the notion that public stations are inconvenient, slow and often broken.

Vandalizing a public EV plug isn’t much more complicated than stealing a bicycle. Charging stations tend to be inconspicuous, tucked into the quiet corners of shopping centres and municipal parking lots. Almost all of them are unmanned, and cutting a cord can be as simple as severing it from the station with a hacksaw.

Vandalism is “front and centre for us and has been really since the start of the year,” says Anthony Lambkin, vice president of operations at Electrify America, which manages about 1,000 charging stations in North America. In 2024 so far, vandals have cut 215 of the company’s cords, up from 79 in the year-earlier period.

FLO, which runs just under 3,700 charging stations in North America, has also seen an uptick in vandalism this year, though it says most damage to its cables is accidental. Recently, seven of the company’s fast-charging cords were cut in a single week.

Wilmer has that beat: On one day this summer, thieves cut multiple cords at the station just outside ChargePoint’s Silicon Valley headquarters. And across the company’s network, four in five vandalism cases involve cut cords. Nationwide, charging executives say the issue is more pronounced in urban centers, with particularly consistent problems in Las Vegas, Seattle, and Oakland, Calif.

Article content Many of these cord bandits are on the hunt for copper. The metal is a critical vein in the fast-growing circulatory system of public charging, and prices have roughly doubled since a nadir in early 2020. Construction, tech gadgets and the strengthening U.S. economy at large are also driving up copper demand.

The profit motive is reflected in the nature of the vandalism, which is often more organized than opportunist. Groups of thieves will cut every cord in a station, taking it offline entirely. Electrify America has also seen copper wiring mined from its charging units, and from underground conduits. EVgo Inc., which operates nearly 1,000 US stations, has security footage of perpetrators wearing uniforms to make themselves look like utility workers or technicians.

“Ultimately, there needs to be a larger law enforcement response to this,” says Sara Rafalson, EVgo’s executive director of policy.

Stealing at scale may also be the only way for thieves to get a decent return on investment. One slow-charging cable, known as a Level 2 charger, contains about 5 pounds of copper; at the moment, that equates to about $21. A Level 3 cord — the kind found at fast-charging stations — has about twice as much.

Article content “The financial reward hardly justifies the risk and effort involved,” says Travis Allan, chief legal and public affairs officer at FLO.

For charging companies, the theft can add up quickly: Level 2 cords cost about $700 apiece to replace, while fast-charging conduits can reach $4,000. Most charger operators are working on technological solutions to minimize those costs, including automated surveillance. FLO’s chargers, for example, have 200 different sensors — including one that can detect a cut cord. But it’s almost impossible to automatically catch every form of casual mayhem.

“It’s very tough to put an alarm on spray paint,” says Yann Benoit, senior director of charging operations at FLO.

Cameras and other proactive monitoring can also get prohibitively expensive, and raise privacy concerns. FLO is testing new chargers that have a camera inside — much like an ATM — but only plans to activate the cameras in areas with high levels of vandalism. Electrify America now has cameras at about 100 of its stations and is deploying speakers that will essentially holler at would-be thieves.

Article content ChargePoint is leaning on drivers as its first line of defense. Last month, the company’s app began prompting users to flag busted stations, asking them to categorize the problem and submit a photo. Wilmer says the update will help the company identify and fix vandalized chargers more quickly, ideally in less than a day.

“We’ve put a ton of investment into this area,” he says, adding that the company is more focused on keeping chargers consistently operational for drivers than lowering its repair costs.

At its San Jose lab, ChargePoint is also examining how vandals execute their task, and what it might do to make that harder. Wilmer’s engineers scour YouTube for videos of thieves cracking bike locks — a process not unlike cord theft — and ChargePoint is among the companies racing to develop an uncuttable cord. It’s trickier than it sounds: Heavy-duty sheathing would help, but it also make the hoses heavier, less malleable and more difficult to cool.

In short, the vandals, at the moment, have the edge.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Military/Veterans; Outdoors; Society
KEYWORDS: automotive; chargers; copper; crime; ev; theft
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To: butlerweave

21 posted on 09/24/2024 11:48:25 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Red Badger
Who buys all that copper?
Going after the fences and unscrupulous scrap metal dealers ought to be possible.

22 posted on 09/24/2024 11:52:06 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: Red Badger

LMFAO


23 posted on 09/24/2024 11:54:59 AM PDT by oil_dude
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To: allblues

Just like I carry my own gasoline hose in the trunk to plug into the pump!

My vacuum cleaner has a retractable cord. Maybe they can use that concept in EVs. Imagine trying to roll up that big, thick cable into your car! It would take up three times the room as the spare tire.

Just one more reasons EVs are a stupid solution to a non-problem.


24 posted on 09/24/2024 11:55:44 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (May the soy boys, feminazis, and alphabet weirdos choke on the toxic fumes of our masculinity)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

They make wireless cell phone chargers, why can’t they make wireless EV chargers ???


25 posted on 09/24/2024 12:11:10 PM PDT by UCANSEE2
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To: Red Badger

Not to worry! Something MORE important! California just banned plastic bags! No more Arkan-saw Tumbleweeds rolling across your deserts!


26 posted on 09/24/2024 12:13:57 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force!--G. Washington)
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To: UCANSEE2
For years, the holy grail of EVs was charging cables embedded in the pavement or on guardrails. You'd pick up power wirelessly the way electric trains do with physical connections to wires. Here's a recent article on this:

E-Roadways: How Do Inductive-Charging Roads for EVs Work?
cars.com
By Fred Meier
July 4, 2024

27 posted on 09/24/2024 12:28:39 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (May the soy boys, feminazis, and alphabet weirdos choke on the toxic fumes of our masculinity)
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To: Red Badger

SINCE DAY ONE


28 posted on 09/24/2024 12:49:36 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: Red Badger

MY SOlUTION:

The ports need to be ON the CHARGER & ON THE VEHICLE.

THEN-—SELL THE VEHICLE WITH AN “UMBILICAL CORD” that is carried in the vehicle.

NO Copper cord left alone to tamper with.


29 posted on 09/24/2024 12:51:15 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: Red Badger

I HAVE HEAVY DUTY JUMPER CABLES IN EACH VEHICLE.

NEVER NOTICED A WEIGHT PROBLEM.


30 posted on 09/24/2024 12:53:01 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: ridesthemiles

12 & 15 feet long.


31 posted on 09/24/2024 12:54:05 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: ridesthemiles

Then the criminals would break into the cars to steal them...........


32 posted on 09/24/2024 12:55:00 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Democrats believe deeply in the “existential threat” of global warming (or cooling or whatever).

Indeed It’s a real money maker Al Gore winks.

Bonus Round: Control power increases


33 posted on 09/24/2024 12:59:49 PM PDT by Vaduz
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To: bray

They don’t steal gas pumps but every day 100s of people drive off with the handle still connected to the car. Accidental, absent mindedness. Especially when people go into the mini mart - come back out get in the car and drive away. Oopsie!


34 posted on 09/24/2024 1:07:48 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: Red Badger

I’m surprised they aren’t making the charger cables out of big aluminum cables most new house the cable from the meter box to the fuse box is aluminum, and some houses have aluminum cables going to their Air conditioners, furnaces, oven, and dryers.


35 posted on 09/24/2024 1:24:58 PM PDT by ReformedBeckite (1 of 3 I'm only allowing my self each day)
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To: Red Badger

TOTALLY UNEXPECTED! Who could have foreseen such a surprising development. /sarc


36 posted on 09/24/2024 1:56:43 PM PDT by House Atreides (I’m now ULTRA-MAGA-PRO-MAXted)
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To: Red Badger

Cable cutters 200% faster and more efficient than hacksaws.


37 posted on 09/24/2024 2:10:30 PM PDT by wetgundog
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To: ReformedBeckite

“I’m surprised they aren’t making the charger cables out of big aluminum cables...”

Non-ferrous metals can be scrapped too.


38 posted on 09/24/2024 2:14:06 PM PDT by wetgundog
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To: Red Badger

Ray Charles could see this coming.


39 posted on 09/24/2024 2:18:34 PM PDT by Professional Engineer (Looks like I'll have to buy the White Album again.)
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To: Red Badger

OOPs, we forgot one thing.

This is as bad as climate wind mills and so many more.


40 posted on 09/24/2024 2:21:04 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (Bye done!)
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