There’s not a lot copper in electrical car (EV) chargers, however that isn’t stopping thieves within the US from raiding stations for the steel.
Automotive Information studies 129 charging cables have been stolen from Electrify America charging stations within the first 5 months of this 12 months, greater than in all the 2023 calendar 12 months (125).
Electrify America has one of many largest charging networks within the nation, and says reduce cables value US$2000 to US$4000 (~A$3000-$6000) to exchange.
It’s much more detrimental to corporations like EVgo, that are but to be worthwhile; the corporate says vandalism has additionally elevated at its stations.
The US state of Washington has change into a hotspot for the theft of copper from cost cables with 89 cables reduce from Electrify America places there between January 1 and July 11.
Nonetheless, thieves have additionally struck chargers in different components of the nation together with southern states like Texas and Tennessee.
However the problem isn’t as prevalent in Australia.
“We see little or no vandalism and copper theft is sort of non-existent,” mentioned John Sullivan, CEO of Chargefox – one in every of Australia’s largest EV charging networks.
Research have proven Australians have already got reservations about shopping for EVs because of the lack of dependable infrastructure, with one revealed by the Australian Automotive Vendor Affiliation (AADA) earlier this 12 months discovering this was the second largest concern drivers had with EVs.
Ought to copper theft change into extra widespread right here, that might inconvenience EV house owners which have already been impacted by Telstra and Optus outages and unreliable Tritium chargers once they’ve gone to high up their automobiles.
As specialists level out, hacking off cost cables with saws to get the copper inside is a idiot’s errand.
“The copper is encased in severe insulation, so that you don’t truly get uncooked copper from the cable,” mentioned Travis Allan, chief authorized and public affairs officer at Flo EV Charging, to Automotive Information.
“It’s utterly Sisyphean to attempt to get cash out of coated, small wires,” he added, noting the hazard of dealing with mentioned high-powered electrical wires.
Nonetheless, thieves try the damaging activity as the price per pound of copper has elevated from US$3.80 to $US4.50 (A$5.67 to $6.72) over the previous 12 months.
