Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose(Houston) charging station

[Skavatar]

"18 of the 19 charging stations had their cables stolen, according to a report that was filed by a Tesla service technician on Monday."

Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose charging station

Imagine pulling into the gas station only to find out that someone cut all of the hoses attached to the pumps.

www.click2houston.com

 

[jsmay311]

Who wants to volunteer and estimate how much money they’ll be able to get for the copper.

Not it!

 

[GHammer]

Unfortunately this happens quite frequently.

 

[RTPEV]

As I monitor non-Tesla DC fastchargers' status for fastcharger.info (there is a lot more openings/closings than Superchargers), I have noticed that Northwest Washington/Seattle in particular has an epidemic of cables being vandalized/stolen. Here is an example from Plugshare:

Bank of America Georgetown | Seattle, WA | EV Station

Find EV charging stations with PlugShare, the most complete map of electric vehicle charging stations in the world!Charging tips reviews and photos from the EV community.

www.plugshare.com

You can sense the exasperation in the provider statement:

Electrify America Announcement
Due to recurring vandalism, the chargers at this location will remain unavailable as we work with law enforcement agencies to determine the source of the continued property damage. The negative impact on EV drivers is unfortunate, and we hope the matter will be resolved quickly. We will provide an update when the chargers become available. You can also check your Electrify America app for the latest availability. If you have questions, please contact our Customer Support Team at 1-‪833-632-2778.
Apr 22, 2024

 

[mrPollux]

This is why the European model of providing an outlet and leaving it to the users to supply the cable is better.

 

[jsmay311]

This is why the European model of providing an outlet and leaving it to the users to supply the cable is better.

Pretty sure that’s only for L2 chargers, not L3.

 

[ChooseFreedom]

18 of 19!?
Where is this station located? No surveillance cameras? Are these cables so easy to cut?
Would a big set of bolt cutters do the trick? Is there no chance of electrocution?
Asking for a friend.

Update: cables aren't live unless connected to a car. And police quickly found a duo responsible for this theft.

 

[bradtem]

Well, now that there's almost nobody working on the Supercharger team, an interesting question to monitor will be how long it takes them to replace these cables.

 

[PassingLane]

Can we go back to shooting thieves? These cars are our horses and stealing a man's horse was a crime against all humanity back then. Should be today too.

 

[MP3Mike]

Update: cables aren't live unless connected to a car. And police quickly found a duo responsible for this theft.

Yeah, cables being live doesn't appear to matter to thieves. This isn't from this location, but an example of their brazen behavior:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787336347591561650

Interesting observation, it looks like it took about 15 seconds for the site to notice the first cut cable and turn off the TESLA logo lights on the stall.

 

[jsmay311]

Yeah, cables being live doesn't appear to matter to thieves. This isn't from this location, but an example of their brazen behavior:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787336347591561650

Interesting observation, it looks like it took about 15 seconds for the site to notice the first cut cable and turn off the TESLA logo lights on the stall.

JFC!

Idk what crazier/stupider… cutting a cable that’s energized or cutting a cable connected to a car with a driver sitting inside it.

 

[KelvinMace]

"18 of the 19 charging stations had their cables stolen, according to a report that was filed by a Tesla service technician on Monday."

Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose charging station

Imagine pulling into the gas station only to find out that someone cut all of the hoses attached to the pumps.

www.click2houston.com

Seems like they need surveillance cameras at SC sites, with an alarmed tripped if an SC is damaged. Of course, since there is no longer anyone left in the SC department...

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Seems like they need surveillance cameras at SC sites, with an alarmed tripped if an SC is damaged. Of course, since there is no longer anyone left in the SC department...

It doesn't matter if you can't catch them, and then recover the cost from them.

The utilitarian in me says to punish it like horse rustling.

 

[KelvinMace]

It doesn't matter if you can't catch them, and then recover the cost from them.

The utilitarian in me says to punish it like horse rustling.

If you have the system designed to alert on damage, in the case of cutting cables off, that can take time to hit multiple chargers. If you have video surveillance of the site, the police have a lot more to go on.

 

[MP3Mike]

If you have video surveillance of the site, the police have a lot more to go on.

It doesn't appear the police had any problem finding the culprits:

And police quickly found a duo responsible for this theft.

Well, now that there's almost nobody working on the Supercharger team, an interesting question to monitor will be how long it takes them to replace these cables.

Did you read the article that was linked to in the first post? Here is a snippet, that might be of interest:

Tesla didn’t respond to KPRC 2′s request for comment. However, all of the chargers were replaced and functional by Monday evening

I think the news of the "whole" Supercharging team being fired is widely misinterpreted and exaggerated. Even after people have confirmed that the maintenance team was not laid off.

 

[ChooseFreedom]

It doesn't matter if you can't catch them, and then recover the cost from them.

The utilitarian in me says to punish it like horse rustling.

Yeah, send a non-lethal charge through the line!

 

[RTPEV]

Maybe one of Tesla's rehires can be the glitter bomb guy that can rig something up to shoot out of the pedestal if a cable cut is detected!

 

[ChooseFreedom]

I think the news of the "whole" Supercharging team being fired is widely misinterpreted and exaggerated. Even after people have confirmed that the maintenance team was not laid off.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe once the install is done and their online, it might be the property owner who gets notification, and they would have local techs that do repairs. Corp Tesla may not have anything to do with the sites once it's up and running.
But I could be wrong.

 

[RTPEV]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe once the install is done and their online, it might be the property owner who gets notification, and they would have local techs that do repairs. Corp Tesla may not have anything to do with the sites once it's up and running.
But I could be wrong.

That's definitely the model for other CPOs, especially ChargePoint and EV Connect who mostly leave maintenance up to the site host. But I don't believe it's the case with Tesla. Tesla is effectively leasing the space from the site owner and manages the station. For sure Tesla engages local techs to do the repairs, but it's not the responsibility of the site host to make that call.

Of course this is how I believe it works today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

[MP3Mike]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe once the install is done and their online, it might be the property owner who gets notification, and they would have local techs that do repairs. Corp Tesla may not have anything to do with the sites once it's up and running.
But I could be wrong.

Not my understanding of how it works. Everything is owned, operated, and maintained by Tesla. (There are a few exceptions where a site host pays the utility for the usage, but most of those are billed directly to Tesla as well.)