Re: Yet Another Reason EVs are a Bad Choice

On Jun 13, 2024 at 3:31:22 PM PDT, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

On 6/13/2024 6:00 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

 On Jun 13, 2024 at 1:36:30 PM PDT, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
 

 moviePig <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

   On 6/12/2024 8:20 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

   I've noticed that several of the EV charging stations at my local mall
 seem to
   have the cables ripped out. (There are also huge swaths of L.A. that
are now
   dark at night because thieves have ripped apart streetlights to steal the
   copper inside.) So now even if you happen to find one of the rare chargers
   that can 'fuel-up' your EV, you're likely to find it useless due to
 thievery.
  
   ----------------------------------
   DETROIT (AP) — Just before 2AM on a chilly April night in Seattle, a
 Chevrolet
   Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on
the edge
   of a shopping center parking lot. Two men, one with a light strapped
to his
   head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt
cutters. One
   man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck.
 In
   under 2½ minutes, they were gone.
  
   The scene that night has become part of a troubling pattern across the
   country: Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on
 stealing
   the cables, which contain copper wiring. The price of copper is near a
 record
   high on global markets, which means criminals stand to collect rising sums
 of
   cash from selling the material.
  
   The stolen cables often disable entire stations, forcing EV owners on the
 road
   to search desperately for a working charger. For the owners, the
predicament
   can be exasperating and stressful.
  
   Broken-down chargers have emerged as the latest obstacle for U.S.
automakers
   in their strenuous effort to convert more Americans to EVs despite
 widespread
   public anxiety about a scarcity of charging stations. About 4 in 10 U.S.
   adults say they believe EVs take too long to charge or don't know of any
   charging stations nearby.
  
   If even finding a charging station doesn't necessarily mean finding
   functioning cables, it becomes one more reason for skeptical buyers to
stick
   with traditional gasoline-fueled or hybrid vehicles, at least for now.
  
   Two years ago, according to Electrify America, which runs the nation’s
   second-largest network of direct-current fast chargers, a cable might
be cut
   perhaps every six months at one of its 968 charging stations, with 4,400
 plugs
   nationwide. Through May this year, the figure reached 129-- four more than
 in
   all of 2023. At one Seattle station, cables were cut six times in the past
   year, said Anthony Lambkin, Electrify America's vice president of
 operations.
  
   "We're enabling people to get to work, to take their kids to school,
get to
   medical appointments," Lambkin said. "So to have an entire station that's
   offline is pretty impactful to our customers."
  
   Until a month ago, police in Houston knew of no cable thefts. Then one was
   stolen from a charger at a gas station. The city has now recorded eight or
   nine such thefts, said Sgt. Robert Carson, who leads a police metal-theft
   unit.
  
   In one case, thieves swiped 18 of 19 cords at a Tesla station. That day,
   Carson visited the station to inspect the damage. In the first five
minutes
   that he was there, Carson said, about 10 EVs that needed charging had
to be
   turned away. In very large cities like Houston, charging stations
typically
   contain an especially large number of plugs and cables, so thefts can be
   particularly damaging. "They're not just taking one," Carson said. "When
   they're hit, they're hit pretty hard."
  
   The charging companies say it’s become clear that the thieves are
after the
   copper that the cables contain. In late May, copper hit a record high of
   nearly $5.20 a pound, a result, in part, of rising demand resulting from
   efforts to cut carbon emissions with EVs that use more copper wiring. The
   price is up about 25% from a year ago, and many analysts envision further
   increases.
  
   Charging companies say there isn’t actually very much copper in the
cables,
   and what copper is there is difficult to extract. Carson estimates that
   criminals can get $15 to $20 per cable at a scrap yard. "They're not
 making a
   significant amount of money," he said. "They're not going to be
sailing on a
   yacht anywhere."
  
   Still, the more cables the thieves can steal, the more they can cash
in. At
   $20 a cable, 20 stolen cables could fetch $400.
  
   The problem for the charging companies is that it’s much costlier to
replace
   cables. In Minneapolis, where cables have been clipped at city-owned
 charging
   stations, it costs about $1,000 to replace just one cable, said Joe
Laurin,
   project manager in the Department of Public Works.

  
   Sounds like you'd want to strongly discourage this particular theft...
  

 
 Sounds like whoever’s charging $1000 a cable may be the real crook

 
 My favorite EV moment was the idiot who we saw standing next to his car at
the
 mall, holding the charger the same way people hold the gas nozzle while
 filling up. He was "pumping" electricity into his car, I guess.

 
I bet a lot of people do that ...once.

This guy was still wearing a mask outdoors in 2024, so I suspect he'll be at
it for a while.