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They are starting to rip out the cables used in car chargers. It's only 2m long, costs £300 to replace and the thief strips out £4 worth of copper.
In turkey there are a lot of people who gather cardboard for recycling for a wage of about 30-40 dollars a day
Is the USA version of this just pulling copper?
Stealing copper, getting under older cars and cutting out catalytic converters, yes. Copper is not a big money maker but it's better than collecting aluminum cans.
The problem with 90% of crime is poverty. They do hundreds of dollars of damage to make a few bucks. If we had universal basic income or better safety nets these crimes would nearly vanish overnight.
In a world where correlation does not equal causation, crime would pre-date capitalism.
Oh. Wait.
Ah yes, the feudal system was ideal for fair treatment and everyone had a roof over their head and a full belly.
They're saying poverty is the source of these desperate crime. Doesn't matter what economic or governmental rule you live under.
So you think the people who do this shit do it for fun? If they had ubi they'd still be crawling under cars to cut cats?
Yes, cutting cats pays extra on top of the ubi.
So are you a dragon/wyvern? I saw an infographic earlier. You might be a raccoon/crow.
Someone needs to place half a Bagel in Trumps and Putins pockets!
It pays so little nobody would even think of doing it if they didn't literally need to to survive.
You're a terrible human being with reading comprehension issues and a weak grasp of history. I would rate you better than our current president, who is a pedophile and a rapist. I would rate you on par with Alex Jones, who afaik is a loud mouth bigot with delusions of having cracked the code but has not directly raped anyone. This rating is based on 1 interaction. I do not wish to have more interactions.
Well, except that it's nearly always super damaging.
The US version would be more like collecting cans back when they had a 5 or 10 cent deposit. Today I can't really think of anything like that. Maybe driving Uber/Lyft. Or just panhandling/begging.
Michigan still does 10 cents a bottle
People do that now in the Netherlands. The bins on the streets of Amsterdam sometimes have little holsters for bottles and tins so you can leave them for people who'd otherwise (or I imagine who still) dig through the rubbish for the deposit.
Several states do this, probably more profit than door dash.
We have recyclers too
If this is how the Western world arrives at harm reduction and UBI for everyone - that it's just good business - I'm not even gonna be mad.
Like that would happen when they can sell £4 cables for £300.
It's not that £4 cable costs £300. £4 is the scrap value of the copper once the insulation has been peeled off. Freshly made cable costs a bit more than that.
It costs £300 to fix because of the cost of the cable, labour and the workmanship.
Well, the ones making the cable still probably only make a small fraction of the value in labor. The majority of the inflated price goes to C suite paychecks.
I remember when I made 10s of thousands worth of cable every day from cheap materials and walked away with a couple thousand a month. I ended up quitting that job, but the slightly mentally challenged woman there who was the most efficient and accurate to spec probably still sits there making cables every day.
Why scrap it when you can turn around and sell it right back to them?
If I break into your house and steal your TV then knock on your door the next day to offer to sell it back to you, would you buy it?
Depends on how much copper is in it, I guess
Not much since I stripped it out and sold it for a cool $4. Now do you want this cable for 1/2 off or not!
That will be great when I'm on a long trip looking to charge in the middle of nowhere lol.
I have actually been stranded a couple of times already. Still love electric though
TBF they do have a large gauge wire in them
It's not a long distance and they don't have super large gauge. I'd have expected 0 or 2/0 but apparently 2-4 is common.
1: Why's it $300 then?
2: All theft from Tesla owners is valid in 2025
3: Why do people assume they aren't selling the expensive cables whole?
- Because the damage also includes labor and overhead, not just material.
- We're not talking about Tesla specifically.
- Even if the stolen cable was left undamaged, who are you gonna sell it to? The company that owns the charging station?
1: Sure it does. Where's the other $250 from?
2: Might as well be.
3: LoL
An electrician isn't gonna charge a tenner for his time. He's not your nephew who mows your lawn after school.
So you're saying they're designed with more than a LOTO point and some bolted lugs?
I mean the other guy is being a dweeb, but his core point seems fair. If it's a big standard cable manufactured in bulk for a charger, shouldn't it have less overhead relative to the core component and built to be easier to replace?
The cables of HPCs are liquid cooled. Replacing them is not trivial
Edit: https://www.omgevcable.com/ev-charging-cables/393.html
LOL
1: Labor & Equipment.
2: Tesla owners don't necessarily own the Charging stations.
3: They are icing wire cutters to remove the cables, destroying the cable in the process.
1: Sure it does. What's the other $250 then?
2: Fair
3: That makes sense. I wonder if the solution might be for the stations to just have ports car owners to provide the cables?
The cables are capable of 100kw and are thick and heavy
And?
Just crimping a connector to such a cable is hard work. You really can't compare that to traditional wiring. Many are also water-cooled.
The cables are water cooled?
Yes. The cables are intentionally made "too thin" so that they weigh less and are less stiff. The upside it it makes handling them much easier. The downside is they they get pretty hot pretty fast, and from there you have two options: Actively cool the cable from inside or throttle charging so the cable doesn't melt.
£300 is about $375, yankee doodle.
Not everyone has a stupid cursive roman L on their keyboards, marmite
I can't be annoyed by someone who knows it's an L and correctly guesses I love marmite!
You know there's more to it than just raw copper, right?
The cable itself, insulation, active cooling, labor, complicated build process, specialized installation, etc.
Don't be daft.
I'm sure they're all handcrafted masterpieces of workmanship, lmao.