EV Charger Cable Theft Is On The Rise! Here’s Why There’s Almost No Benefit

Electrify America reached out and asked if we would touch on a story about cable theft! Around the country we've seen numerous reports of hundreds of cut DCFC cables, so we dive into the topic and its absolute silliness.

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[Kitchfox]

Like I have been saying for years. These jack wagons will work 10 times harder for a dishonest dollar than they would for an honest dollar.

[TheBitGuy]

They need to add a sense wire so that the station knows when the cable is cut. At that point it can sound a very loud alarm, which might discourage the perpetrator from cutting the rest of the cables at the site. It could also mark the station as offline so that people wouldn't expect it to be working when they showed up.

[rud]

You can’t steal more cables if you no longer have any hands. 😂

[davegraff]

Make the cables retractable. It won't come out without payment details loaded.

[brianclayton]

If copper were present in gas pumps and thieves attempted to steal it, authorities would likely impose immediate and stringent penalties, responding more swiftly to such incidents.

[rahpowah]

The only way this will be fixed is if the law is enforced. Once people start facing consequences for this it will become much less frequent.

[JeanPierreWhite]

If the vandalism costs exceed $1, 500 in Washington state that makes the crime a felony. Have EA informed the police that the crime qualifies as a felony based on the monetary damages? I don't understand how the police refuse to investigate a felony.

"The threshold for felony vandalism in Washington State starts at $1, 500 in damages.
However, even damage below $1, 500 can be charged as a felony if it meets specific criteria like targeting certain types of property."

[anton_grahn]

What is up with the US Police system, seems quite dysfunctional? Things like this would be heavily investigated and handled seriously in Sweden

[natehill]

Sounds like a job for AI. When it sees someone approaching carrying loppers, it energizes the cable, then sells the fireworks video to pay for new ones.

[mpmike]

EA should know instantly when a cable is cut. There is at least one temperature sensor in the connector, and obviously the reading for that sensor will go out of bounds when the cable is cut, if they don't already monitor it for that they should. (From that video of the Supercharger cables being cut we see that Tesla turns the light off on the charger about 15 seconds after the cable is cut.)

[mabutarif]

When theft and property damage that are worth thousands of dollars is something police departments don’t want to do anything about, unfortunately there is zero consequence to thieves and there is nothing stopping them.

[waatup]

Biggest problem is there’s also almost no punishment

[KyleConner]

Should I go to Seattle to film all of the EV chargers with cut cables? What do you think the solution is when the police are clearly not taking this seriously?

[YaztromoX]

You keep saying that it’s not worth it — but at $15 each that was $60 worth of cables behind you. And while that’s not a lot on its own, what you need to look at is how much value you can extract for how little work. And cutting cables doesn’t take much effort — you can likely have those 4 cables cut in 10 minutes. Stripping the cables isn’t any work — I think you’re picturing thieves like this sitting with a knife and manually removing all of the sheathing, but that’s not how they do it — they dump the cables in a pit, pour some gasoline on them, and light them up. Once the fire is finished and the metal has cooled, you just pull it out and you take it to a scrap metal buying. Done. If you can cut, transport, and burn 10 cables in 2 hours, that’s the equivalent of making $75 an hour. I certainly don’t advise not condone anyone doing this — but for someone with little scruples who needs the extra income, this is a pretty easy (and with no action from the police, pretty safe) way to do that.

[natehill]

Are they stealing them for copper or just vandalizing to prove how superior gas cars are?

[anthonyc]

Cable theft in the Seattle-area has gotten so bad that EVgo has said they won't bother replacing cables until the problem is solved. Starbucks HQ had their Chargepoint cables stolen and another nearby Starbucks-Volvo station had its cables cut within a week of the station opening.

[PianoBoy]

kyle -- Reach out to the Puget sound / Seattle area state and city district attorney. You are a member of the press, and I think using your press credentials to pressure elected officials is a good idea. Maybe also reach out to Seattle area EV clubs and see what their perspective is.

[hazmatt]

$15 is $15...thieves aren't doing analysis on the reward of their labor. As a high voltage contractor, we see 12kV cables cut often. here in Southern California. Funny thing for them is 2 fold...1 - if it's energized, with load...BOOM!!! Huge fireball (and they get what they deserve), 2 - if it's a new install and not yet energized, Southern California Edison underground wire is primarily aluminum with small concentric stranded copper that we use as the neutral on the outside of the insulation/semi con layer. But that's what they know about and think the entire cable is copper. But just like a charging cable, they'll get very little reward for all the cable they cut. High Voltage cables are mostly insulation with a rather small conductor at the center. But, again, thieves aren't thinking rationally so it's an uphill battle to help them make an educational decision to steal something else 🤣 Hope they figure out it's not worth their time as you said, it hurts the rate of adoption for an EV transition. Very cool of EA to reach out to you! Great PSA video. Keep up the great content as always!

[jeffhaddox]

Copper theft has been an issue for years. It doesn’t matter how much copper is in it. Over 20 years ago my wife worked at a day care center that when they went to turn on the air conditioner that was in a fenced area when the HVAC person went too look at the unit it was just gone stolen for the copper. There is a bridge in Southern California I just saw a news article on that the local government can’t keep the street lights on because they keep stealing the wire. As someone who worked over 30 years in correctional facilities both county and state, I’m surprised it has taken so long for this to start. I personally would like to see statistics for other crime at these charging stations. If this isn’t an issue now, I almost guarantee it will be soon. Your appeal to would be cord cutters is at best naive. They don’t care, criminals are going too take your stuff, especially if it is just out in the open with little to no witnesses, that’s why San Francisco residents have stopped locking there cars that way the windows aren’t broken to rifle through their stuff. The Prius guy may just have an axe to grind because they make better looking cars too virtue signal with, or you just find it hard to believe a criminal drives a Prius. I think both Ed Kemper, and Ted Bundy drove VW bugs, when I was a kid that was the car hippies drove 😂

[LCCB]

Best way to stop it? Call your congress representatives, call your mayor, bring it up in town hall meetings. Push on your local leaders long enough and they’ll make it a priority.