Re: Yet Another Reason EVs are a Bad Choice

On Jun 13, 2024 at 12:28:41 PM PDT, "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...

 If you're going to strongly discourage theft-- instead of, you know,
incentivizing it like they do in California-- why not strongly discourage
*all* theft?