EV Charger Cable Theft Is On The Rise! Here’s Why There’s Almost No Benefit
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2024
- 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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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.
What if those thieves are Not for the money but rather anti EV radicals?
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.
Stop defunding, demoralizing and otherwise hating the police and you’ll find out they do care. NBC news/ K5 in Seattle recently reported they are down 700 police officers.
Charge EV Parking Fee's Per Hour $20-$50 as u wait to be recharged / will DO to pay for 24/7 manned private guards on station.
Then the police will likely also not care if someone "takes care" of the situation when the guy is caught.
@@toofast4radar Oh no, doing anything about it is vigilantism, and you'll go to prison AND hell forever for that!
So I’m curious @mabutarif, did you delete my comment or was it UA-cam? Either way, suppressing the truth is part of the reason why this country is heading in the direction it is…sad
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.
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.
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.
The socialist government in Seattle does not care. They are bought and paid for by George Soros. Sadly, Kyle's words will fall on deaf ears.
Local TV is "press". UA-camr is not "press".
@@jfbeam 1000% not true. Precendent set in the United states is that “every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion” is considered press. UA-camrs like this Channel are absolutely press and the original commenter is correct they should reach out to the police department for comment of what they are doing about it
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."
Long story short but I've been a victim of several felony-level thefts and the police in my area just emailed me a form to fill out and sent me something back so I could file with my insurance. No follow-ups, no investigation as far as I can tell... It's incredible that all of these police getting nice salaries, benefits, pensions and just sit around getting paychecks and they simply don't care JeanPieereWhite
Thank you. Unbelievably there are people on here saying cops have better things to do. It’s grand theft.
@@virtuserable That's disturbing to hear. Sorry you went through that. We are but one step away from anarchy.
@@virtuserable It's not that the police are just sitting around... it's that the local politicians and DAs aren't willing to follow up and prosecute these thiefs and throw them in jail.
But he just said 15 bucks.
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?
🦮🐕Have one of Boston dynamics guard dogs, patrol, each charging location with a paintball gun mounted to its back. Ready to attack whenever someone is doing something dumb.
One solution could be maybe some sort of shielding on the side of the cable that makes it difficult to cut. They could also make sure there’s always electricity running through so that the person gets the shock of their life when they try to cut the cables.
But on a more serious note: cameras mounted on each charging station along with a voice that comes on saying that the stations are being monitored by the authorities.
Yes! Ideally, I think, a BYO cable situation would be great, but if people forget, loose, etc, that cable. Well....there you go. Another cool, but possibly expensive, and maybe not even workable idea, would be a cable that retracts into the dispenser, or have a door that that the cable goes into (the charger) when done charging. Hopefully this all makes sense. Thanks for the video.
Yes. Please do. I posted the following on a seperate thread in these comments.
"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."
If you can shame the city of Seattle for not dealing with a repeat felon that may make the police take action. It's the only way it's gonna stop. Maybe get an audience with the police chief, or the mayor. If they won't talk to you a local news hound should be receptive.
@@Silverado_EV_ChEVy_Avalanche Paintball gun? I was thinking double pack Taser!😊
Though there might be little to prevent it, I believe that shining more light and awareness on it could increase the risk for those doing it.
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.
Fake news. Crime is down in all major cities and the police, prosecutors, DA are tougher on criminals than ever before. The economy is great, so there is no reason for theft. Please stop noticing things.
I imagine a "trailer park boys" type crew hiring all of the greasy people in the park to strip ev cables
I think that's the best they can do until law enforcement takes down the buyers and prosecute the thieves. Otherwise, if charging networks keep replacing cables, the thieves will keep farming those chargers and eventually make a neat sum of money
Just keep the cables energized at all times 🤷
Back in the day owners put razor blades on fender skirts and cops went after car owners.
if EV charging stations weren't isolated deserts devoid of anything that would encourage owners to hang around while charging, this would disappear instantly. i've only had my Kia Niro EV for 11 months and i'm aghast at how unwelcoming EVERY charging station i've ever seen is. no protection from weather, often stuck somewhere out of the way, etc. makes for the ideal site for unobserved theft.
Bull. Guy pulls into empty charging spot, gets out, cuts cable, leaves. Are you going to do a damned thing to stop him?
Biggest problem is there’s also almost no punishment
This is right here. So simple.
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Let's defund the police further and reelect democrats
What do you want these people to have their hands removed. Theft has been going on forever. Build a better cable one that is harder to cut. Or hide these EV pumps in the ground until a customer needs it to charge their vehicle. Get smarter then the thieves.
@@godslove7708 that’s like saying just be tougher to murder victims lol. Laws have well defined punishments for these things but they are not enforced. In addition to grand theft, intentional destruction of electric/transportation infrastructure can be considered terrorism
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.
Sense wire, absolutely.........a complete stupid oversite as to why it was not included already. A Loud alarm could be problematic at some locations.
Actually a sensing wire might not be necessary. You can inject a pulse on the open wire and measure it's reflectance to measure the length of it. You'd know when it's cut by the change in the return time
Make it a felony to damage a charger, once one guy is prosecuted it will stop.
Omg RACIST😢
It is a felony in Washington State if you vandalize in excess of $1,500. These acts would qualify as felonies.
It already is a felony based on damage in $. The problem is that Seattle police don’t actually arrest people because they’re too worried about catching discrimination charges if the arrested party is a member of any protected group (pretty much everyone in Seattle is a member of one protected group or another)
@noewiy4524 That is nonsense. Seattle PD is infamous for targeting minorities, to the point I am more confident that they know the thief isn't a minority, hence the lack of interest. After all, since when has risk of suit stopped SPD before?
This should qualify as a felony already, based on the damages. The felony threshold is $1500, which is less than the cost of a single cable.
What is up with the US Police system, seems quite dysfunctional? Things like this would be heavily investigated and handled seriously in Sweden
The US is huge, this is not a universal problem in America. Seattle however has a problem in that they don’t want to prosecute crime, they chose to defund the police, crazies walk the streets and attack random people. Great job Seattle..
The police themselves were politicized and stepped away from their duties in some regions. Seattle and Portland were emblematic of this after the summer of 2020 and it’s perhaps not coincidence that the cable theft overlaps in that region.
Police have Better things to do !
Police have better things to do.
There was a whole “defund the police” moment specifically in Washington and Oregon after the George Floyd protests in 2020
$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!
Nevada here, I've seen the cables discarded on the side of the road. I saw footage of someone stealing cables from 5 locations and coal rolls his diesel truck on the way out. He's just some anti-EV politically radicalized person. It's clearly not even about the money, some peole are just assholes.
@@meikgeik This! This is the real reason this is happening not the money made!
EV charger cables are nothing like what you’ve exampled, they are high voltage and high amperage, and have to be flexible so they know they are full of fat copper.
@@ericnewton5720 right, but like Kyle stated, $15 worth of copper. Not worth it to you and I but to thieves it’s more than they started with. I was just making an example that thieves don’t care. They think all of it is loaded with copper. I’m fully aware of how those cables are as I’ve installed plenty of Tesla super charger sites and ChargePoint sites here in So Cal.
i call bullshit on a market price of those. Rest of that cable is basically plastic/synthetic rubber. That sounds like 2000% markup
You can’t steal more cables if you no longer have any hands. 😂
I used an EA station last week that has a sign on the dispenser stating "no high value metals".
Why not add a wire loop in the cable. If it is cut, an alarm would go off. Either at the individual stations or at the whole site. Also turn on video cameras.
I'm sure that's possible, but it requires a redesign and replacement of existing hardware.
@@SueBobChicVid you say that but replacement is happening every cable lost.
@@joshuaspires9252 It's a good argument. There needs to be hardware added for the loop circuit detection in the control box too. I'm sure a bean counter could do a cost analysis to see where the break-even point is. But it is not as simple as adding a wire loop to each cable they replace. And I expect it will not affect how many cables are stolen (no added deterrent).
@@SueBobChicVid So a detail you may miss, is that their is communication for the cable already. So a example charge point has a IO board at the top of the cable just inside the cabinet. that comes with a new cable every replacement. so the interface to the cabinet is already their. Thus they only would have to revise their cable.
Another great Idea!
Are they stealing them for copper or just vandalizing to prove how superior gas cars are?
A: yes...
my thougts as well
copper theft has been a problem before electric cars where a thing. Ask any electrician
@@JD-yx7beAsk anyone who has a new house built - and had the wiring stolen out of the walls.
Or making a point about the charging unit not working --- again..and again and again, well they will not miss this cable that never works...right?
They should keep the cables energized ⚡
EA should welcome the "cable theft" issue. They can now blame a legit reason why their charging stations never work.
The solution is simple, just make sure the cables are always live, 400 volts will do the trick.
Then they’ll get sued and it states like California and Washington, they’ll win. Also, that’s a LOT of wasted energy.
Well person did that and it didn't work. Plus it's only live if plugged in. If people can just unplug it before they cut it will change nothing. Not to mention now you have waste energy that the charge suppliers have to eat.
Better answer is just have the wire coiled into the station with the handle just locking to the unit. Can't unlock till after you give your payment info.
Wasted energy?
I don't think that would be safe. If the cable were live when not charging a car, any person accidentally touching the DC pins while plugging in would get zapped.
This is why DC cables lock to the car during charging and refuse to unlock until sensors have confirmed that no power is flowing through the cables. Anytime high power is flowing through the cables, having them locked to the vehicle ensures that nobody kills themselves touching something they shouldn't be touching.
@@dpav02keep in mind it would save $2k per cable and the expense could be worth it, also it can run very low amperage just voltage is needed here to do the trick and thus reduce power expense
Provide Police departments highly discounted kwhs so they convert more squad cars to EVs so they more frequently visit charging stations!
Great idea!
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.)
Scrap yards need to recognize what they are taking in,
If scrap yards had to stop buying stolen shit they'd all go out of business.
Honestly, how would they know. It's not like people are turning in the cable to them. All the scrap yard sees is copper wire. Who is to say the person didn't get the copper legitimately.
unfortunately copper wire theft ain't like the "scourge" of Catalytic Converter theft that we've had since 2020.
That station has two days worth of meth. Add to that, Grandma wont let them in her house anymore since they stole her jewelry....
That's why they are stealing them.
Exactly. The charging cables are just free money for the taking. If you live in a tent and having nothing but time, then it's not a problem to strip out the copper.
But guys it's cost 6k for electrify America to replace that two days of meth. It's not a fair trade
You're so on point. And to add to that, the guy had the typical meth dog - a brown pit bull.
I bet this guy talks to himself and yells at the sky too.
EA, being a government agency will find a way to pay the most money for the least value. EA needs to fail so the real free market in EV chargers can succeed.
And it refills, its like a gold mine
It's a shame we have reached this point but sounds like the only solution is hardening the charging stations against such vulnerabilities.
1. Cameras
2. Alarms
3. Making the cable inaccessible until a valid customer enters credentials
4. Punishment and prosecution when all else fails
Tho I also suspect some of these "thefts" are not for monetary gain but instead just the anti EV crowd taking out their childish insecurities on us.
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 😂
It was obvious this would be a problem as soon as chargers with fixed cables were being installed in numbers.
The only economical way to avoid it is for each car to carry its own cable and have a socket on the charger. Can't steal a cable that's not there.
@@spankeyfish That is apparently what they do in Europe.
@@jamesphillips2285only for AC chargers, not for DC Fast Chargers.
@@spankeyfish those cables are thick, heavy and very expensive. This is due to the high current that needs to be carried. So it would not be economical for vehicle owners and not realistic to expect drivers to store and handle the cables.
@@jamesphillips2285 Not with high power cables like at the fast chargers. those cables are thick, heavy and very expensive. This is due to the high current that needs to be carried. So it would not be economical for vehicle owners and not realistic to expect drivers to store and handle the cables.
This is reflective of a bigger issue in society which is the perception by many that theft and vandalism is acceptable. It starts early in life with either poor or no parenting and It is reinforced when there are no consequences for their actions.
How about electing prosecutors who will, you know, prosecute
It's drugs. Maybe one of the biggest issues in American society.
@@TKevinBlanc Like 90% of crime can be traced back to drugs (a statistic I just made up but is probably close)
Unfortunately, bad human behavior is an even harder problem to fix than climate change! 😮
@@TKevinBlanc Thankfully, we ended the "remain in Mexico" policy and now the drugs can run over our border freely. It's a good thing..
I recently planned a drive to Roswell NM in my M3 and I noted that Plugshare stated that the cables to the Francis Energy DCFCs had been cut. I phoned the gas station that hosted the DCFCs and asked them to inspect the cables...they did so and confirmed that the cables had been cut. I then phoned Francis Energy and informed them... and this was the first that they'd heard of it!!! It took over a month for the cables to be repaired.
Kyle's version of "a short" 😂 LOVE IT!
This is happening all over. Not just EV charge cables. It’s street lights and traffic signals as well.
Yes I saw a report from down in LA apparently thieves have stolen all the copper wiring in that new overpass bridge over the rail yard they built a few years ago.
1 Charging stations should have 4K security cameras fixed on their charging station lots.
2 Make the crime a felony for both state and federal courts. Charge them with both jail time AND a fine to the amount necessary to fix or replace the damaged chargers.
3 Retractable cables and plugs at all charging stations ... even destination chargers, I can't count how often I see these cables just laying all over the ground.
I'd wager that most people doing this aren't doing it for money they are doing it because they don't like EVs or Tesla/Elon or specific EV stations.
nope, copper theft has been a problem for decades. I worked as an electrician and had to replace stolen lines often before even the tesla roadster existed
The cables are probably dumped in a pile and never even cashed in. These aren't "copper thieves" so much as they are saboteurs. These are the people who complain that they would never buy an EV because the charging stations are always broken.
Well, if Dems admit they're gonna try to ban my choice of normal car wont person be angry and fight back w EV vandalism? It's human nature. You start to ban meat you can bet people will vandalize vegan stores. You are pissing off 100 million people and 1% will fight back in dumb ways... It's not right, buy it's human...
This is what happens when you decriminalize stupidity.
My practical side is suggesting that the solution is for more surveillance and law enforcement involvement. My Murica side is saying that we counter theft or copper with expenditure of lead.
You can bet the police would get involved if someone was cutting gas station hoses off
doubtful, gas stations get robbed all the time
The cable should come out of the cabinet once payment is established.
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.
Why does the government have anything to do with this problem? Are you calling them about how often these things don't work?
It doesn't matter how many videos you make about this, don't expect thieves to have enough IQ to understand there is no benefit. When they steal, they don't think, but they see a thick cable and an opportunity, same when they steal anything else... Like a bag inside a car and they decide to break the glass... There is never a benefit, but there is no brain, except misleading rumors between thieves. It's like an infection that is impossible to stop.
I mean $15 a wire is actually pretty good value. How many things can you steal that you can both easily run off with yet are worth over $10? And this guy went to a station and cut basically the entire station making nearly $200 in less than 30 minutes. That's better pay than most actual jobs.
Is it really about the copper though or about something more sinister to discourage EV adoption? It probably is about the quick cash but wouldn't be surprised if it's being encouraged/promoted quietly by special interests
@@Skylancer727 Gotta remember, he has to process the cable to get the copper out. It's probably a pretty big pain and takes time, which cuts down on the $/hr. But maybe it's the fact that scrap yards may not ask questions, where as eBay might start asking for documentation if you try to offload your stolen retail goods there.
Exactly.
9:30 "AI" to detect charger not used for a while? Why would that require AI? An algorithm can detect that?
I don't know if anybody else here has suggested this already (1000+ comments as I type this) but charger manufacturers might want to find a way to have at least some electrical current running through the cable at all times. When thieves are found lying on the ground with industrial wire snips next to them and that becomes an increasingly common phenomenon, problem solved.
One of the problems is that for the safety of EVs, the battery and chargers have to be floating with respect to earth (not totally sure about the chargers). So even if you were stupid enough to cut the cable while a vehicle is charging, I think you wouldn't actually get shocked. The biggest danger is from molten copper shooting everywhere, and ultra violet light from the high current arc. Plus a really huge bang. And your cable cutter is totally ruined. I suppose for theft limitation you could put a voltage with respect to earth on the cables, and take it away immediately that the vehicle is plugged in. You could possibly even be humane and make it non-lethal, but instead just really, really unpleasant. And you could detect the breach and activate cameras etc. But the first time some dude with a weak heart dies, the charger manufacturers could be in big trouble.
Really I think that the most practical solution is to include a very thin wire that loops from inside the charger, out to the plug, and back on itself. As soon as the cable is cut, that breaks the loop, sets off an alarm, you could have flash cameras go off, make a big fuss. Maybe play a MP3 through horn loudspeakers of how law enforcement has been notified, your picture is published, and you're going to prison.
you really don't get it. They use battery cutoff wheels, you won't get shocked at all, it will just spark. Have you ever cut a live wire????
If you count your time reading the comments it is about an hour long video! Thanks Kyle!
When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong.
Maybe it’s not about the copper, rather anti-EV
Considering the profits, I'm guessing you are right. Especially for the repeater, who has seen how little copper they're actually is...
@Kyleconner This is certainly part of the issue here in Seattle.
I think it’s mostly copper theft not vandalizing.
Nevada is prob more vandalizing than theft.
Yeah, those crack addicts really have a hate on for EVs.
ask any electrician copper theft has always been a problem
The thieves are facing felony charges if caught due to the cost of the cables.
If you live in an area that does not enforce the laws due to your politicians, this is what happens. You get what you vote for.
Yup ua-cam.com/video/LCEqjXI1SLk/v-deo.html
EV charging is quite literally critical infrastructure and destruction of chargers should result in very harsh penalties. It's a shame police don't seem to care. Millions and millions of our tax dollars going to them just to get a "🤷♂️" is absolutely wild to me
Why can’t they imbed a smal gauge wire in the cable. Essentially a loop ➰ so when it gets cut the charger would know.
they could
A loop that explodes when tampered with dousing the entire area with pepper spray
@@macbook802 Better yet... purple stain that is dispensed at face/eye level that can't be washed off.
Yeah, I don’t buy that EA can’t detect this. There are temperature probes in the cable that will no longer report valid data once the cable is cut
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.
Your videos are solid, keep up the good work
No it$ NOT ! we Must Charge EV Parking Fee's Per Hour $20-$50 as u wait to be recharged / will DO to pay for 24/7 manned private guards on station.
And shorter. Over 15 min is too long and really just sounds like he likes hearing himself talk.
@@ZIGZAGBureauofInvestigation that is a bot!
@@ericnewton5720 it’s a bot my friend! Report the bot.
@@ericnewton5720 it’s a bot!
Good topic. More awareness is always preferable to ignorance.
In February, I was in Hayward, CA visiting my aunt. I rented an electric car, a Solterra BTW, to get an idea of range anxiety before buying an EV. I was excited to see a large bank of EVGo chargers in the parking lot of the nearby grocery store. However when I went to charge, 10 out of the 12 chargers were vandalized with the charging cables missing. Of course, the entire bank was shutdown. My family said the incident made the news but I have no idea if the police were able to locate the culprits.
Damage to infrastructure is prosecuted severly here in the UK. Because it affects society.
The police in any given country have a duty to serve society, and go after criminals.
Isn't the UK too busy arresting people for mean tweets?
Mixed metal is a pain to recycle. so copper plating AL strands would lower the resale value more than the value of the copper or the AL. Add in a few strands of steel and it would be a mess to recycle. edit: and even if you add a few AL strands and a few steel strands the result would be a wire that could be identified. Sure there is still catalytic converter theft, but that has a higher value. reducing the shiny copper to the mixed metal price would lower the value.
This is the idea I've heard by far. Sounds inexpensive ,once the cable manufactures are set up for it and makes the product of theft not worth the effort.
Most of the utilities I've worked with have replaced the old stranded copper ground conductors with copper clad steel. It's essentially worthless as far as theft.
The difficulty with aluminum is it doesn't like to be manipulated and tends to fracture with repeated bending. But I'm sure some material's science guy could come up with some alloy that would do the trick.
The chargers could have the cables on reels. They'd be locked inside the unit until a payment card is swiped and account confirmed. Added expense for the companies though.
@@SirOsisofLiver even if the other steel or aluminum cables weren't energized, they could just be there to mess with the recyclers.
For theft it sounds like a possibility, but for future recycling it is also a problem.
@@jamesrsnyder6951 Radiators with AL fin with copper tuning are already recycled. The steel would end up in the bottom of the melt.
This Video is 15 Minutes Long (Don't Get Use to It)
Felt like there was an error with Out Of Spec Reviews video.
The shortest video in the Kyle's history 😂
A big reason I'm watching this one tbh. Usually I have to carefully think about whether I want to invest a quarter of my day on the video's topic and/or whether the kids will let me watch it to completion before I get distracted
Yea for most out of spec videos I scrub through. I don’t have 3 hours to see how a car drives. For that I mostly go to TFL.
@@dpav02 I listen / watch out of spec videos like a podcast in the background. 2 hours is about the max i'd go through the whole thing. 1 hour plus is the sweet spot.
There are currently FOUR EA stations that are completely knocked out by this!
Screw this guy, honestly.
You should email the news stations here in Seattle with a link to your video. This is the type of things news stations love to run with.
As a Soul EV owner, I feel the pain over the loss of Chademo. I used this very spot more than a few times over the years.
This reaction from Seattle police makes the “defund the police “ crowd sound more reasonable. Why pay for cops who refuse to do their job?
It is not the police, it is Freeattles local DA and city gov already have the reputation of no law enforcement, the problem is in many lefty run cities.
The defund people said to not enforce vandalism laws... This is what they wanted. To me, this is WHY the defund movement was so stupidly unreassonable.
The defund the police wanted the police to stop beating up and arresting minorities for no reason. They want to fund real police work, not thugs on a power trip.
Yup ua-cam.com/video/LCEqjXI1SLk/v-deo.html
Edmonton Canada has had dozens of cables cut in the past year. 😢
Wow. So someone is doing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to public infrastructure and the police won't do anything about it?
I just took a quick look at Plug Share around the Seattle downtown area and I can see that tons of the public chargers are "Under repair" with users reporting that the cables were cut.
Why the hell isn’t this guy being identified, prosecuted, and jailed? Do felonies not count as important in Seattle? Not a place I would want to live if they don’t take felonies seriously. Why are they paying the cop’s salary if they do nothing?
Crime rate is high there so petty theft is thought of as almost a waste of resources with how much they deal with crime, domestic violence, and public endangerment. You see similar in New Jersey where begging is rarely punished so much that they're everywhere.
This does not address the fact that people who arrive at these charging stations at very low state of charge, expecting to continue their travel to safe resting spots, can get “trapped” at these stations, some of which are in unsafe locations to walk away from, especially in dangerously cold winter conditions. Does someone have to die or be killed before the cops take these crimes seriously?
Most of the blame is with the prosecutors who refuse the charge the few people the police do arrest
It isn't the cops who are the problem. It's the mayor, the city council, and the DA.. Arresting anyone does nothing if the Soros-funded DA won't prosecute .
Another point to make is whether the theft of cables is a felony or misdemeanor,, the Soros-elected DA's refuse to prosecute, so they simply let arrested thiefs out of jail!
I have two ideas for the charge point operators albeit at their cost - one reactive and the second proactive.
1. Install surveillance cameras at each charging station. If vandal caught on camera doing any damage to the charging unit, post video on social media and shame them. (I would even consider posting footage of people ICE'ing a charging stall.)
2. Have the charging cable retract into the unit when not in use.
How would you shame a person in a mask that has no shame? You have to have cops informed immediately and arrest them on scene
@@thedopplereffect00 - Well, I'd say you haven't thought your reply all the way through. First, they don't always wear a mask as evident in this video, and most don't. Second, it's irrelevant. Once the video is posted, the locals will probably recognize the offenders (or their vehicle like in the this video) and then maybe even report them to the authorities. What I will agree upon is that some of these knuckleheads just don't give a rat's a$$ because they have no scruples / morals / decency thus no shame. None the less, it can still help deter people who do have shame and are tempted to vandalize the charging station. Regardless, I really don't care if they have shame or not as long as something is being done to help mitigate this from happening. So instead of people complaining about it, proactive ideas are being presented. What ideas are you putting forth to help prevent or discourage charging station vandalism?
The plugs have temperature sensors so the charger can immediately detect & report a cut cable.
Maybe they should add indelible dye to the coolant on cooled cables.
What we need to do is in cases of vandalism or petty theft the punishment should be a fine of 10 times the amount of damages done. The money to be put into a fund to compensate victims. If they don't pay then their paycheck should be garnished for as long as it takes.
In Norway many of the chargers are close to 24/7 “Energy” stations. Toilet and food is more important than cheap power according to surveys.
norway has far less crime in general
Here in Clarksville TN we had this same issue with landline phones so I believe you can’t run in raw copper and you must register to turn copper bars.
Adding an AirTag to the charging cable handle might be an easy solution.
They would cut that part off
Well, if places like Seattle don't want to deal with them, then I'd have no issues with street justice being enacted on those damaging charging stations.
The drug users do not care what effects their actions have on anyone else. The only care is to make a small amount of money to feed their addiction. If any tesla users want to start parking teslas near the superchargers one week to get the evidence to get the person arrested and filing a group criminal case.
I’ve been saying for years, apparently to deaf ears (including out of spec), that BEVs will not take off for the masses unless/until fast-charging stations convert to the gas-station model of having full-time attendants (with all the benefits that come with that, including restrooms, food, windshield-washing supplies, ability to pay by credit card and cash, to help handicapped & senior customers who have limited strength/mobility, ability to immediately fix or get repairs for a broken charger, and of course provide safety for both the chargers and the customers). And ubiquitous canopies to protect from rain and sunlight, as you have at most gas stations, is a necessity, not just a convenience. This current model of unattended chargers will fail if not changed, and mass adoption of BEVs will never take off without it; spending billions of dollars to build out charging stations in the unattended form is largely a waste of money ... it's best to spend a decent portion of that to build up the site of each charging station, not just throw in charging stations without the on-site support.
That is already kind of happening with Circle K, Shell, 7-Eleven, Pilot Flying J and others installing charging at their sites.
Spot on.
The gas station/supercharger system of charging EV's sucks. EV's should be charged where people are going to stop anyway. The supercharger system of making people go out of their way and sit there twiddling their thumbs while the vehicle charges is stupid. Most modern vehicle manufactures track where their vehicles stop and how long they stay there. It's not rocket science to put chargers in convenient places.
This is already happening.
I agree and the faster this happens the better for EVERYONE
Make the cables retractable. It won't come out without payment details loaded.
1. Add a button on the UI to report the cable cut/in-operative
2. Security cameras for the lot
Perhaps this guy needs his Catalytic converter stolen. Call it Karma. Isn’t the Prius the #1 targeted vehicles for this. $100 worth of raw materials, but costs over $2000.00 to replace from Toyota.
The car is almost certainly stolen. He won't bother fixing it, he'll just steal another.
They’re going to have to go after the people who buy the copper. I don’t know if the copper used in charging cables is identifiable in someway, but they are going to have to regulate the copper buyers to ensure they don’t buy copper sourced from cut cables.
The only way to protect the cables themselves is with manned security. That’s the only thing that will actually work.
Yes, so they need to build charging stations that are like gas stations; a little store that has an employee. This will be paid for by the EV owners when they charge. Or you could vote in mayors and prosecutors who will actually fight crime.. you know, not Democrats.
Gonna be hard to do as copper recycling is fairly common. But I guess the railroads somehow got away with that so maybe it is possible. In the US it's illegal to recycle anything that clearly belongs to the railroads. It's easy to steal from them as the railroads quite literally dump steel scrap beside the rails and leave it there and rail lines sit with no traffic for up to a few hours between trains.
That is the main thing. Its really just one scrap yard somewhere that is accepting obviously stolen wire.
@@steverogers8163 It's probably not "obvious"...
I’m all for maned full service charging sites. That way I don’t have to spend all that time trying to get out of the car and charge.
Proud 1973 Buick Electra 225 owner here ☺️
The cable theft may owed a gas station.😁
How come the local cops are not doing under cover work to catch these people
Kyle, one thing you miss on this topic is that many live in an age of survival. Like catalytic exhaust component theft here in western Canada which are gone in 60 seconds these cables take a bit to cut yet is far easier compared to finding empty beverage containers in areas where recycling happens, to come up with $18 in recycling takes all day or longer.
The world increasingly is a world of people who have nothing Vs people who wreck a cybertruck just because. Not saying there is anything wrong with wasting one's money but many people have this as a unreachable dream.
Not saying you wreck vehicles just making the point that $18 worth in 60 seconds is a windfall for those who have nothing.
It's not up to the police to secure cables, let charge point providers look after their property the same way store owners secure their stores with security.
Bottom line it's a sad reality of today's world.
Also, your UA-cam won't increase the thefts as most people who commit these thefts do not have the time to read messages like this.
People stealing 18 bucks worth of copper are not poor, they're junkies.
To reduce the incidence of this kind of theft, replace the charger cables with aluminum cables! I suggested this a few weeks ago, and the most important disadvantage is that aluminum would be stiffer and heavier. Heavier because aluminum is 60% as conductive as copper. The stiffness can be addressed by using thinner strands in the cables. Might take a little engineering time to get it acceptably sleek.
No good. Aluminum has too high of a resistance. The cables would either get too hot or they'd have to run a lower amperage, increasing charge times.
@@rcjbvermilion I am a trained electrical engineer. To handle the increased resistance, doubling the ampacity of a conductor is more than enough. Read about aluminum wire at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring
could just put them behind a locked cabinet until payment is approved.
Aluminum cable will break when flexed too much.
A scrap merchant is never going to pay full value for that copper - for starters, they need to process it into a reusable form, and of COURSE they know it is stolen if someone is turning up regularly with these cables; places that have regular loads of scrap cable will be known companies with known reasons for having it - the place I worked would produce about 1 tonne of scrap cable off-cuts per month, from 8 of us panel wiremen producing industrial control panels..
The machines that can strip off the insulation on cable this thick arent cheap - so if the thieves want to strip it down themselves, it is a long, hard job - and hard work is what they are trying to avoid by stealing it in the first place.
So the thought is - are they really stealing it to sell?? I have seen a few posts on social media when the cables were just cut, not stolen; is this just the anti-EV crowd taking it to the next level?
(And if so, doesnt that technically make it a hate crime?)
I hate to be the one to have to inform people but you can't just throw enforcement at the problem and expect it to go away. Police in this country are actually really well funded, they get about half of the average municipal budget. We spend more on policing than almost any other country in the world and we have more of our population in prison than almost any country in the world, and crime still happens. You can't even really economically disincentivize it, this Prius guy is going around destroying a $2,000 cable that's going to cost probably hundreds of additional dollars in labor to replace and costing probably dozens of hours of lost time for EV drivers just so he can waste a lot of his own time picking through the cable very carefully to extract about $20 worth of copper. He's probably driving a Prius because that's the only way that he can not spend more money on gas driving around than he gets from the crime.
How does enforcement not solve the problem? We have a situation where one guy has stolen 97 cables. If he were in jail, he would no longer be stealing cables. It's not like there's a huge list of cable thieves.
What if he does it to get the work? 5head.
To quote just about every battery electric vehicle driver in the comments on UA-cam: "And I never have to go to a gas station, ever again!" DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE AT GASOLINE STATIONS? "Staff." "Human beings." WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU EXPECT with the concept that battery electric vehicle charging stations must sit around abandoned, at all hours of the day and night? HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU EXPECT that these aren't targets for anyone who wants to make a few quick bucks? HERE'S ONE THING TO INVESTIGATE: By all means, find out how many of these "cable thieves" have been arrested, let alone convicted and served any time incarcerated? "Good luck with that."
@@tomhoots We don't actually want them to be sitting around abandoned all day, that's certainly not a choice we'd have made if we'd been allowed to choose where the chargers go. We'd be thrilled If more charging stations were located by a nice convenience store or a restaurant, or at least a place with shade and a bathroom. Entirely too many chargers are located in isolated places where you can't safely access any kind of service on foot, and they're placed there because the land was cheap, or possibly because that was the only place the high voltage grid connection could go. Although at least a few of these chargers that have been targeted seem to be located at existing service stations, and the fact that we got footage of him doing the crime means that they are already under observation.
@@tomhoots
To be fair, many of the newer EV charging stations are, in fact, at gas stations, so benefit from whatever staff and amenities the gas station has. (I don't see it with EA, but I do with other brands).
They need to stick an Apple Tag tracker in each cable…
That will reveal the cable is at a metal recycler. We kinda knew that anyway.
@@JeanPierreWhite If the cable is still intact enough to include the tracker, the recycler is trafficking in clearly stolen goods and can be prosecuted easily.
@@concinnus You appear to assume all cables with a tracker are stolen. Routine replacement of cables due to faults etc will result in cables being recycled. How is the recycler meant to know the difference? I would hazard a guess that more cables are replaced as routine maintenance than is the case for vandalism except in a few hot spots like Puget Sound.
@@JeanPierreWhite Anyone salvaging cables legitimately can easily demonstrate such, or they simply have their own separate channels. The also have the whole cable, no cut. They're not bringing in a dozen EV charging cables with the dispenser end cut off.
I imagine this is more what they consider a moral statement rather than something for financial gain
When in Vegas early this year we saw a charger where a cable was cut and the station was full, so we ended up going to a different station.
EV owners: "Defund the police"
EV owners after the cable at the charging station gets cut: "why aren't the police doing anything?"
Yeah... cops in the PNW got their feelings hurt real bad during the pandemic and haven't worked since.
My local Seattle EV station had 3 of 4 chargers missing their cables just last week. Seattle and it’s no consequences DA’s, judges, school board, and voters are to blame and we’re now nearly as bad as San Fran and LA. Thanks for your efforts on educating about EV’s. Love our solar panels and Ioniq5.
Doesn't matter if the cables are only worth 10 cents.
Thieves gotta be thieves.
We can't rule out that it's simply just anti-ev vandalism. Even if there's little value in it, there's 100% reward in the d-bag sending a message.
minimum wage is $7/hr stealing a copper cable is $15 in 5 minutes.
@@JD-yx7be it's not if you still have to dig into the rest of the cable and retrieve the copper, then find a way to sell it. So take out half the value in time and fuel costs
Perhaps there is a black market for the whole cable with connector. Somewhere in the world, low cost, low quality charging stations are being manufactured with cables that are about 3' shorter than in the USA.
Facial recognition cameras on every charging station
I have been waiting for a company like Amber for a long- long time. Thank you!!!!
Small conspiracy theory; Maybe the cable cutters work for the companies that make the cables? XD
That's definitely a conspiracy theory. It's not the copper content they're getting. The gas/oil companies are paying for the sabotage. Best thing to do is a software update to have high voltage ready in the cables at all times
Definitely a conspiracy theory. My idea is it's not the copper content they're benefiting from, the gas/oil companies are paying for the sabotage. Best thing to do is a software update to have high voltage ready in the cables at all times
Regardless the cable makers are the real thieves, 2000.00 dollars for 15 dollars of wire. That's criminal
Hmmm. Seattle had one of the more violent "defund the police" events not too long ago. Since no human life or health is directly threatened, why should they put themselves in the position to face violence for enforcing a non-violent crime? I have family that lives up there, and I have heard comments that the police shouldn't be involved in crimes like these. After all, it is big corporations being hurt financially.
I don't agree with this position, but I can understand the police feeling that, since the community doesn't want them involved, why should they?
And 15 to 18 dollars per cable, means that someone can get their drugs after just hitting to charge points, 10 minutes cutting cables and 30 minutes stripping copper. They probably feel it's worth it.
People talk that way till something they care about gets stolen. Luxury beliefs.
The police get paid enough to do their fucking jobs with hurt feelings. They don't even have to do any work, just put out an arrest warrant for this dude, they already know who it is.
@@slash196 The people of Seattle told them what they wanted done, the city council agreed. The police are doing just that. The defund people can go out and do it. It's not the job of the police anymore.
@@slash196 The DA is often not prosecuting either so pointless for the police to arrest them in the first place
I have two ideas for slightly different problems.
1) have the connection to the charger and cable communicate when hung up. That would be on the holder where the plug sits. No communication means, not connected to a vehicle or not in the holder. I don't know what the time limit would be until the unit sends out no connection. App would show, cable not connected.
2) have a level 1 connection to unlock the parking spot at the cable.
Everyone should have a level 1 cable in the car.
Rather then put chargers in the middle of nowhere with no attendants to watch them, they should put them next to convenience stores that own them and have employees to monitor them. You know, like a gas station that sells food and stuff people need when traveling. What an amazing concept. 🤷 I have been to a few Buc-ee's gas stations that have Tesla chargers on their lots that are owned by the gas stations. This works way better as theft prevention than remote monitoring and expecting government employees to police petty crimes on private property. It also invites more honest customers who are just stopping there to pee or buy items at odd hours in the night who can report crimes and make theft less likely to happen in the first place. As an added bonus, it means the people/company who own the chargers can also make money off of customers who don't use the chargers and instead just buy stuff at the store. I mean why just make money just selling energy when you can make money off of people's need for daily consumables? Kind of like gas stations figured this out long ago and now make way more money from the consumables they sell than the cheap gas they sell.
I seriously doubt this is theft. There are a lot of people who hate EVs. Vandalism is more probable explanation.
Another reason to develop wireless charging and take the option for theft/vandalism out of the equation…
Police are the problem in Seattle , the citizens need to vote for better police people which actually starts with voting for better mayor so start there
Aren’t they the same people who were protesting demanding “defund the police” just a few years ago?
If the courts won’t require bail or the criminal is not actually prosecuted why should police bother to arrest them?
Yes then those people need to be voted out
@@bradleyanderson4315u r dumb.
It is not the police, it is Freeattles local DA and city gov already have the reputation of no law enforcement, the problem is in many lefty run cities.
They should put a sense loop of wire in the cable. Have an alarm go off if the cable is cut.
They don’t need any special AI or any weird sensors. All they need is a low-voltage/ground loop that runs through the cable and back into the machine when it’s cut, it will notify the machine that the cable no longer has continuity.