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From: moviePig <nobody@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Yet Another Reason EVs are a Bad Choice
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2024 17:50:17 -0400
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On 6/13/2024 5:00 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2024 at 12:28:41 PM PDT, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 6/12/2024 8:20 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
>>>   I've noticed that several of the EV charging stations at my local mall seem
>>> to
>>>   have the cables ripped out. (There are also huge swaths of L.A. that are now
>>>   dark at night because thieves have ripped apart streetlights to steal the
>>>   copper inside.) So now even if you happen to find one of the rare chargers
>>>   that can 'fuel-up' your EV, you're likely to find it useless due to
>>> thievery.
>>>   
>>>   ----------------------------------
>>>   DETROIT (AP) — Just before 2AM on a chilly April night in Seattle, a
>>> Chevrolet
>>>   Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on the edge
>>>   of a shopping center parking lot. Two men, one with a light strapped to his
>>>   head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One
>>>   man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck.
>>> In
>>>   under 2½ minutes, they were gone.
>>>   
>>>   The scene that night has become part of a troubling pattern across the
>>>   country: Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on
>>> stealing
>>>   the cables, which contain copper wiring. The price of copper is near a
>>> record
>>>   high on global markets, which means criminals stand to collect rising sums
>>> of
>>>   cash from selling the material.
>>>   
>>>   The stolen cables often disable entire stations, forcing EV owners on the
>>> road
>>>   to search desperately for a working charger. For the owners, the predicament
>>>   can be exasperating and stressful.
>>>   
>>>   Broken-down chargers have emerged as the latest obstacle for U.S. automakers
>>>   in their strenuous effort to convert more Americans to EVs despite
>>> widespread
>>>   public anxiety about a scarcity of charging stations. About 4 in 10 U.S.
>>>   adults say they believe EVs take too long to charge or don't know of any
>>>   charging stations nearby.
>>>   
>>>   If even finding a charging station doesn't necessarily mean finding
>>>   functioning cables, it becomes one more reason for skeptical buyers to stick
>>>   with traditional gasoline-fueled or hybrid vehicles, at least for now.
>>>   
>>>   Two years ago, according to Electrify America, which runs the nation’s
>>>   second-largest network of direct-current fast chargers, a cable might be cut
>>>   perhaps every six months at one of its 968 charging stations, with 4,400
>>> plugs
>>>   nationwide. Through May this year, the figure reached 129-- four more than
>>> in
>>>   all of 2023. At one Seattle station, cables were cut six times in the past
>>>   year, said Anthony Lambkin, Electrify America's vice president of
>>> operations.
>>>   
>>>   "We're enabling people to get to work, to take their kids to school, get to
>>>   medical appointments," Lambkin said. "So to have an entire station that's
>>>   offline is pretty impactful to our customers."
>>>   
>>>   Until a month ago, police in Houston knew of no cable thefts. Then one was
>>>   stolen from a charger at a gas station. The city has now recorded eight or
>>>   nine such thefts, said Sgt. Robert Carson, who leads a police metal-theft
>>>   unit.
>>>   
>>>   In one case, thieves swiped 18 of 19 cords at a Tesla station. That day,
>>>   Carson visited the station to inspect the damage. In the first five minutes
>>>   that he was there, Carson said, about 10 EVs that needed charging had to be
>>>   turned away. In very large cities like Houston, charging stations typically
>>>   contain an especially large number of plugs and cables, so thefts can be
>>>   particularly damaging. "They're not just taking one," Carson said. "When
>>>   they're hit, they're hit pretty hard."
>>>   
>>>   The charging companies say it’s become clear that the thieves are after the
>>>   copper that the cables contain. In late May, copper hit a record high of
>>>   nearly $5.20 a pound, a result, in part, of rising demand resulting from
>>>   efforts to cut carbon emissions with EVs that use more copper wiring. The
>>>   price is up about 25% from a year ago, and many analysts envision further
>>>   increases.
>>>   
>>>   Charging companies say there isn’t actually very much copper in the cables,
>>>   and what copper is there is difficult to extract. Carson estimates that
>>>   criminals can get $15 to $20 per cable at a scrap yard. "They're not making
>>> a
>>>   significant amount of money," he said. "They're not going to be sailing on a
>>>   yacht anywhere."
>>>   
>>>   Still, the more cables the thieves can steal, the more they can cash in. At
>>>   $20 a cable, 20 stolen cables could fetch $400.
>>>   
>>>   The problem for the charging companies is that it’s much costlier to replace
>>>   cables. In Minneapolis, where cables have been clipped at city-owned
>>> charging
>>>   stations, it costs about $1,000 to replace just one cable, said Joe Laurin,
>>>   project manager in the Department of Public Works.
>>
>> Sounds like you'd want to strongly discourage this particular theft...
> 
> If you're going to strongly discourage theft-- instead of, you know,
> incentivizing it like they do in California-- why not strongly discourage
> *all* theft?

For humans, incentivizing is a zero-sum game.