EV charging stations are tempting copper thieves.
I knew there was a reason why the great exercise in central planning that is our electric vehicle (EV) transition was running into trouble. As so often (Comrade Stalin has some stories), it is not that there was anything wrong with the great, brilliantly conceived plan, but that it has been actively been sabotaged, in this case by thieves.
This year through June, nearly one in five US public charging attempts ended in failure, according to JD Power.
One in five, eh?
Imagine going to a gas station and finding that one in five pumps were not working.
What was the problem?
Well, in the case of 10 percent of the cases it was due to due to a damaged or missing cable. Some of that was good ol’ vandalism, but reports Bloomberg, “charging executives say much of the damage has a specific, profit-based motive: copper.” Similar problems are reported in Europe (where, incidentally, things are not going too well for EVs).
Part of the problem is that charging stations are not set up like gas stations, in a space with where someone is watching (in between selling beef jerky and other treats).
Bloomberg:
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 centers 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.
Now imagine the lonely charging station in some rural area. . . .
Now imagine a driver arriving at that charging station only to discover that the copper bandits have been and gone, he has 20 miles of range left, and he’s in the middle of nowhere.
An extra twist of the knife comes from the fact that the copper price, which has done fairly well since the beginning of the year, is being helped by the demand for the metal created by the great decarbonization project. The good news is that a single charging station won’t yield much, so it might be left alone. The bad news is that the low individual return calls for a systematic approach.
Bloomberg:
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.
One question: All this accounts for 10 percent of the non-functioning stations (1:5 on all). What’s going wrong with the rest?