Re: Yet Another Reason EVs are a Bad Choice

On 6/16/24 5:10 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On Jun 13, 2024 at 3:32:55 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
 

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 21:56:00 +0000
BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
>

  On Jun 13, 2024 at 2:16:20 PM PDT, "Rhino"
  <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
    > On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 00:20:39 +0000
  > BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> 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.
  >>
  >>
  >
  > I can think of several solutions to this problem, though some would
  > require some research:
  > 1. Find a material to use that isn't copper but works well enough.
  > (That's the one that requires research.)
  > 2. Wrap the cables in metal cladding to make it harder to cut.
  > That's been done for years.
  > 3. Instead of providing a cable at the charging station, let the car
  > owner provide it; the charger would only contain a port/receptacle
  > for the cable. Initially, the cable could be kept in the trunk like
  > booster cables but eventually the engineers would figure out a more
  > elegant way to keep it hidden away and just pull out of the car
  > somehow.
    Then you're just going to have thieves breaking into cars and
  stealing their cables the same way they're vandalizing gas-powered
  cars for their catalytic converters.

>
Probably. Still it would entail somewhat more risk than just pulling up
to a vacant recharging station and cutting the cables with bolt cutters
so it might discourage SOME theft while implementing the better
solutions.

 Our society is in slow-motion collapse and the leftists in charge seem to like
it that way:

That sentence must be word for word out of the white supremacists handbook.  And when you think about it is there anything more oxymoronic than "white supremacist?"

 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/thieves-steal-metal-los-angeles-6th-street-bridge-ribbon-of-light-goes-dark/
 Hundreds of people every day walk on Los Angeles' 6th Street Bridge, but at
sundown they disappear, and the "Ribbon of Light" goes completely in the
dark.
 "About 7 miles from end to end of copper wire that has been stolen," L.A. City
Councilman Kevin de León told CBS News. "So these lights are becoming ATM
machines."
 The eye-catching bridge-- which traverses the L.A. River and the 101 Freeway,
connecting the historic Boyle Heights neighborhood to the downtown L.A. Arts
District-- opened to great fanfare in July 2022 and at a cost of nearly $600
million, but now has Angelenos shaking their heads in dismay.
 Over the past year, thieves have gradually stripped the lights, poles and
copper wiring that illuminate the bridge's arches. The stolen metal in total
is worth about $11,000, according to de León.
 Hundreds of fire hydrants across the city have also been stolen for scrap
metal since last year. Security video showed suspects using a truck to knock
one down and haul it away.
 "It's mind boggling that somebody would just come into a neighborhood and
steal a fire hydrant," Angeleno Krystal Cousins said. Many replacements now
have locks to prevent access to the bolts.
 Meanwhile, city officials don't plan on replacing the bridge's lights until
they can find a way to stop the thieves from picking the bridge apart.

Copper is valuable.  Do you have a fucking point?  Ever?