In response to Automotive Information, there was a notable surge in cable thefts from EV charging stations, with roughly 130 charging cables belonging to Electrify America stolen between January and Could 2024.This marks an enormous enhance in comparison with the 125 cables stolen all through all of 2023.
The states with the best variety of stolen cables embody Washington, Nevada, and California, with Washington alone reporting 89 stolen cables within the first half of 2024. Regardless of the rising worth of copper—rising from $3.80 to $4.50 per pound from July 2023 to June 2024—consultants counsel that the thefts might not be financially worthwhile for the thieves.
Travis Allan, chief authorized and public affairs officer at Flo EV Charging, defined the futility of those thefts. “It’s utterly Sisyphean to attempt to get cash out of coated, small wires,” Allan instructed Automotive Information. “A normal Degree 2 charging station with a 25-foot cable has about 5 kilos of copper. The copper is encased in severe insulation, so that you don’t really get uncooked copper”, as per Drive.com.
In apply, the thieves may probably earn as much as $22 per cable. Nonetheless, the worth of the stolen copper is considerably decreased because of the intensive stripping required to extract it, with estimates suggesting a price of $5-$7 per cable.
Why thieves are concentrating on electrical automobile charging stations
Whereas this challenge is outstanding within the US, it stays comparatively uncommon in Australia. Rob Asselman, head of promoting at Chargefox, the nation’s largest public EV charging station supplier, reported that copper theft isn’t a major downside in Australia. “Copper theft from charging stations in Australia is exceedingly uncommon. I am not conscious of a single case of it occurring on chargers hosted on the Chargefox platform,” Asselman instructed Drive.
As an alternative, Australia faces extra frequent points like vandalism. “The much more frequent challenge is… mindless vandalism the place chargers are inoperable because of the kind of deliberate, mindless injury that occurs to different public infrastructure and amenities,” Asselman added.
Regardless of the rarity of copper theft from EV chargers in Australia, copper theft continues to be a difficulty in different contexts. A earlier report by ABC highlighted a case the place three Sydney contractors had been charged and arrested for allegedly stealing 300 tons of copper wiring, with a resale worth of roughly $3.5 million.
