Re: Yet Another Reason EVs are a Bad Choice

On 6/13/24 7:05 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

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.

So you're saying if you happen to be near someone outdoors that's a super spreader such as yourself a mask isn't going to help?  Because it sounds like this entire thread is you promoting the ignorance that is the GOP.  Hope this helps.