A holiday weekend took a not-so-relaxing turn for one family when they awakened to find their electric van had been vandalized.
"So, somebody tore off my charger cable's protective cap and keyed the side of my car while I was charging at night," one of the family members wrote on Reddit in the subreddit r/electricvehicles, adding that their rental property didn't have security cameras.
They shared a picture of a dark gray van, marred with squiggly white scratch marks, and the reflection of a person with a seemingly resigned pose was seen in the window of the electric vehicle.
"At first I thought it was just your general act of vandalism, but I then noticed that the person also tore off the protective cap of my charging cable, making me assume that someone just had a personal issue with EVs," they continued in the comments.
"I am sorry that your kids are seeing this, OP. What a bummer…" one Redditor wrote.
"It's amazing how deeply some people hate EVs," another said.
EVs bring with them myriad benefits, saving owners time and money on gas and maintenance as well as creating 52% less asthma-causing pollution than traditional vehicles over their lifespans, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Nonetheless, myths about the vehicles have continued to circulate.
While the motivation for vandalism has been unclear in some cases, it has not been uncommon to see it happen either to the vehicles themselves or the equipment needed to charge them — seemingly as a form of protest.
"That's awful," another person commiserated with the OP. "We had so many surprisingly pleasant encounters driving from NJ to Ohio. Sad but necessary to remember it might not always go that way."
"This is an actual recurring nightmare of mine," someone else wrote.
One Redditor shared that they've had a few unsettling "aggressive encounters" at fast-charging stations before adding, "No one even knows my [SUV] is an electric car unless they see it charging."
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