The theft of electric vehicle charging cables has gotten so out of hand in one of the greenest American cities that officials are soliciting the public for help.
Thieves can get $20 for the copper inside a fast-charging cable, which cannot be coiled up and retracted into a housing unit to prevent theft like Level 1 charging cables can. This has caused a major issue in Seattle, GeekWire reported.
"If you know of any solutions, please send them our way," Seattle City Light senior manager of grid modernization Uzma Siddiqi said.
Seattle is home to the United States' first carbon-neutral utility, and it gets half its electricity from hydropower. The utility has also been rolling out more fast chargers.
However, more than 100 charging cables have been stolen in the last year, including 42 City Light fast-charging cables that have been taken twice apiece on average, according to GeekWire. The utility has encased 40% of some of the cables in metal to try to prevent theft.
There are plans to install more retractable cables, and hiring a security consultant is on the table, though City Light may turn to the European model of using chargers that require drivers to bring their own cables.
The retractable cables seem like a good idea, but Level 2 and 3 charging stations are more in demand at public sites than Level 1 chargers because of their ability to recharge EV batteries quickly.
Nothing is expected to stop the thieves, who cause $2,000 in damage and render charging stations unusable for at least days when they clip cables.
"It's going to continue that way until something changes," City Light senior capital projects coordinator Jacob Orenberg said.
It's a problem that must be solved to help the transition to electric vehicles, which produce significantly less pollution than gas-powered vehicles and nearly zero pollution if they're charged with renewable energy such as solar or wind.
The batteries that are supposedly so bad for the environment — they do require the mining of metals — are also much better for our health and the planet. They require millions of tons of lithium, nickel, and other metals instead of billions of tons of coal, gas, and oil, which are infamously driving the climate crisis. This displaces millions of people each year by supercharging extreme weather events and making them more frequent.
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