Thieves in the US are targeting electric vehicle ( EV ) charging stations, but not in the way one might expect. Instead of the cars themselves, thieves are focused on stealing the metal cables that power these facilities, according to Travel .com.
There have been a number of EV charging station incidents, according to Automotive News, with 130 Electrify America charging cords being stolen between January and May 2024. 125 cords were stolen throughout the entire year of 2023, which is a significant raise.
The states with the highest amount of stolen wires include Washington, Nevada, and California, with Washington single reporting 89 taken wires in the first quarter of 2024. Despite the rising price of copper—rising from$ 3.80 to$ 4.50 per pound from July 2023 to June 2024—experts suggest that the thefts may not be financially worthwhile for the thieves.
Travis Allan, general constitutional and public affairs official at Flo EV Charging, explained the folly of these incidents. ” It is totally Sisyphean to try to get cash out of covered, little circuits”, Allan told Automotive News. About five pounds of copper are present in a typical Stage 2 charging place with a 25-foot wires. The copper is encased in serious insulation, so you do n’t actually get raw copper”, as per Drive .com.
In practice, the thieves could potentially earn up to$ 22 per cable. However, the extensive stripping that was done to extract the stolen copper significantly reduces its value, with estimates predicting cable values of$ 5 to$ 7.
Why are electric vehicle charging stations being targeted by criminals?
Although it is more prevalent in the US, it still hardly ever appears in Australia. Rob Asselman, mind of selling at Chargefox, the country’s largest public Evan charging station company, reported that metal fraud is not a major problem in Australia. ” Australian charging stations are extremely uncommon for brass fraud. Asselman told Drive that he was unaware of any instances where it happened on adapters hosted on the Chargefox platform.
Rather, Australia faces more common problems like theft. Asselman continued,” Senseless theft is a much more prevalent matter… where chargers are useless due to the kind of deliberate, senseless damage that occurs in different public infrastructure and facilities.”
Metal fraud from EV chargers is a problem in different settings, despite its rarity in Australia. A previous ABC report highlighted a case in which three Sydney companies were detained and charged with allegedly stealing 300 tons of copper cable for a resale value of about$ 3.5 million.
