Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

Electric vehicle charging cable theft is on the rise

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/owning-1/2021-03/electric-vehicle-charging-cable-theft-is-on-the-rise/

I suspect we will see more of these articles in the press in the future. While no doubt someone will point out that charging cables are usually locked to the car, this won’t deter copper cable thieves just after scrap value. It is by no means unusual for thieves to chop through live cables. The other problem is the potential damage to the charging port of the car and charging point by attempts to force the release of the cable. It may not affect many of us existing EV owners who charge on our drives or in garages but it may concern anyone contemplating street charging. 

Edit: .... and in the link below are some suggestions how to prevent cable theft.

https://www.leasefetcher.co.uk/guides/electric-cars/electric-car-charging-cable-theft

How unlucky can you get? See this Reddit post 

Last night I had my type 2 cable stolen from a public charge point in Manchester centre (UK) I was also issued with a £70 fine for using a electric parking space without charging.

Here’s the weird bit:

I was charging until 21:07.17 at which point I was notified my charging was interrupted. I have the charge logs from the supplier (ChargeYourCar) to authenticate this time.

The ticket for parking without charging was issued at 21:09. This means that the parking attendant wrote down my details (reg, model, colour) within 100 seconds of my cable being stolen/charging stopping.

UPDATE

Contacted Tesla. They say it’s the third one this week that’s been stolen from that street!

It’s impossible to disconnect the car while the thing supplying the power is active. This means that someone is able to override the charge points, maybe by resetting them or tripping them out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/774we4/help_please_type_2_charging_cable_theft_but_how/

Martyn1981

Hexane said:

Not sure if this exactly counts as "news" or not, but: 

BBC: Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations

By Justin Rowlatt, Chief environment correspondent.

"If you live in a flat or a house without a drive, don't worry. The aim is to have an electric vehicle (EV) charging point at virtually every parking place."  Followed by some upbeat words from a fellow from PodPoint. "The National Grid says it won't have a problem charging all the electric vehicles that are going to come onto our roads", with a quote from National Grid's Head of Control. And much more along the same lines, concluding it's going to be a "death spiral" for petrol stations accompanied by a general increase in forecourt prices for fossil fuel powered cars.

The comments section is something of a mess!

Yep, nice article. I was especially chuffed to see the NG predict a 10% increase in demand, as that's been my rough calculation (17% gross increase, before refinery and other leccy demand savings) for years.
The comments are painful to read, mostly in complete denial, about range, and the leccy grid browning out.
Still it could be worse, at least they're not pushing FUD about 140 mile range Tesla's*, and collapsed demand in China! 

*Or did they:-

I drove into London this week, 280 miles return, and stopped at the Oxford services twice, There, lined up and looking bored, were the Tesla owners sitting playing with their phones, helpless while their cars recharged. I refuelled, 5 minutes, and I was on my way.

Funny how 'he' had to stop too, and a 5min stop for a Tesla could mean +80miles of additional range, assuming it needed to stop on a 280 mile trip, or wasn't charging whilst in London.
Some people will never see the forest for the trees.

Do you honestly believe that when 100-200 million vehicles are being charged, that the grid will cope, and that the energy cost will be palatable?

Where's the facepalm emoji?

And Boy oh Boyo, do those folk like hydrogen ........ so they like BEV's, but only if they also have a FC and H2 tank on board ........ and the H2 produced from additional leccy  ...... that isn't apparently available to charge a BEV ....... k, got it!

Quite a fun way to start the morning off.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

Hexane said:

Not sure if this exactly counts as "news" or not, but: 

BBC: Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations

By Justin Rowlatt, Chief environment correspondent.

"If you live in a flat or a house without a drive, don't worry. The aim is to have an electric vehicle (EV) charging point at virtually every parking place."  Followed by some upbeat words from a fellow from PodPoint. "The National Grid says it won't have a problem charging all the electric vehicles that are going to come onto our roads", with a quote from National Grid's Head of Control. And much more along the same lines, concluding it's going to be a "death spiral" for petrol stations accompanied by a general increase in forecourt prices for fossil fuel powered cars.

The comments section is something of a mess!

Yep, nice article. I was especially chuffed to see the NG predict a 10% increase in demand, as that's been my rough calculation (17% gross increase, before refinery and other leccy demand savings) for years.
The comments are painful to read, mostly in complete denial, about range, and the leccy grid browning out.
Still it could be worse, at least they're not pushing FUD about 140 mile range Tesla's*, and collapsed demand in China! 

*Or did they:-

I drove into London this week, 280 miles return, and stopped at the Oxford services twice, There, lined up and looking bored, were the Tesla owners sitting playing with their phones, helpless while their cars recharged. I refuelled, 5 minutes, and I was on my way.

Funny how 'he' had to stop too, and a 5min stop for a Tesla could mean +80miles of additional range, assuming it needed to stop on a 280 mile trip, or wasn't charging whilst in London.
Some people will never see the forest for the trees.

Do you honestly believe that when 100-200 million vehicles are being charged, that the grid will cope, and that the energy cost will be palatable?

Where's the facepalm emoji?

And Boy oh Boyo, do those folk like hydrogen ........ so they like BEV's, but only if they also have a FC and H2 tank on board ........ and the H2 produced from additional leccy  ...... that isn't apparently available to charge a BEV ....... k, got it!

Quite a fun way to start the morning off.

Just having a look at the up votes and down votes on the comments it does seem there is still quite a strong anti EV bias and this is on the BBC website, not the DailyMail. They may all be wrong but as yet the EV doubters still seem to be in the majority. 

michaels

I think this qualifies as BEV news:
Avolon and Vertical Aerospace Announce World’s Largest eVTOL Aircraft Order | Business Wire

Plan is to have 4 passenger electric vertical take off and landing air taxis operational by 2024.  That timescale sounds really positive. 

They are planned to be pilot operated but I wonder how low the cost per mile could be if they were fully automated?!

(The 4m cost per unit is a lot of capital that needs paying off)

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

And Boy oh Boyo, do those folk like hydrogen ........ so they like BEV's, but only if they also have a FC and H2 tank on board ........ and the H2 produced from additional leccy  ...... that isn't apparently available to charge a BEV ....... k, got it!

I think there are some who would gladly drive an EV pick-up and then load a diesel generator onto the flat bed

Ectophile

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

And Boy oh Boyo, do those folk like hydrogen ........ so they like BEV's, but only if they also have a FC and H2 tank on board ........ and the H2 produced from additional leccy  ...... that isn't apparently available to charge a BEV ....... k, got it!

I think there are some who would gladly drive an EV pick-up and then load a diesel generator onto the flat bed

Isn't that called a range extender?

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

And Boy oh Boyo, do those folk like hydrogen ........ so they like BEV's, but only if they also have a FC and H2 tank on board ........ and the H2 produced from additional leccy  ...... that isn't apparently available to charge a BEV ....... k, got it!

Well, rather than electrolysis you could make your hydrogen by steam reforming of coke, coal or NG:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming

Then you get all the zero-tailpipe-emissions kudos without reducing FF use(!)

Solarchaser

EVandPV said:

Thefts of electric car charging cables could be the next crime wave to sweep Britain's streets in the wake of catalytic converter raids

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-9663889/amp/Thefts-electric-car-charging-cables-wave-car-crime.html

Apart from most EV's having cable locking mechanisms, do most chargers not also have the same at the other end ?
The zappi requires a PIN to release the cable. Just assumed most other chargers have something similar ??

This just sounds like your normal daily mail/express headline.
Panic, PANIC.
BE ENRAGED about.... well anything really.

A colleague was telling me how it's now a regular and growing crime for people to drive up and steal your electricity to charge their car.

I couldn't help but laugh, oh aye, someone is parking in my drive uninterrupted and charging for free, but costing me a *fortune*.

What a load of rubbish

Edit. Cos I didn't realise there was another page.
Steeling a Tesla charge cable seems a bit weird.
See being used to a leaf, you can just take the cable out, unless you specifically tell the cable to lock.
But in my first day of owning the Tesla I didn't realise you had to press the release button on the dash, and for the life of me I couldn't get that !!!!!! to budge.

Call me cynical. 

As such the BBC is nothing like the bastion of impartiality it's supposed to be, or perhaps was 30 years ago.
Just state propaganda 

JKenH

Solarchaser said:

EVandPV said:

Thefts of electric car charging cables could be the next crime wave to sweep Britain's streets in the wake of catalytic converter raids

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-9663889/amp/Thefts-electric-car-charging-cables-wave-car-crime.html

Apart from most EV's having cable locking mechanisms, do most chargers not also have the same at the other end ?
The zappi requires a PIN to release the cable. Just assumed most other chargers have something similar ??

This just sounds like your normal daily mail/express headline.
Panic, PANIC.
BE ENRAGED about.... well anything really.

A colleague was telling me how it's now a regular and growing crime for people to drive up and steal your electricity to charge their car.

I couldn't help but laugh, oh aye, someone is parking in my drive uninterrupted and charging for free, but costing me a *fortune*.

What a load of rubbish

Edit. Cos I didn't realise there was another page.
Steeling a Tesla charge cable seems a bit weird.
See being used to a leaf, you can just take the cable out, unless you specifically tell the cable to lock.
But in my first day of owning the Tesla I didn't realise you had to press the release button on the dash, and for the life of me I couldn't get that !!!!!! to budge.

Call me cynical. 

As such the BBC is nothing like the bastion of impartiality it's supposed to be, or perhaps was 30 years ago.
Just state propaganda 

It does seem there has been a problem with Tesla cables in cold weather releasing to prevent the pin freezing leading to a spate of thefts. Out of the total number of Tesla on the road it’s only going to be a tiny percentage but as with any Tesla issue it does get reported. See Electrek article below. 

https://electrek.co/2020/12/23/thieves-stealing-tesla-charging-cables-suspecting-lock-defect-cold/

and this article explains why once the cable was unlocked at the car end it could also be removed from the charger. I don’t know if Tesla have fixed this issue yet but I’d be more concerned about it in Scotland perhaps than if I lived in, say, Cardiff.  Once the criminal fraternity get onto something like this then they will no doubt wait for a chilly night, pull on a woolly hat and gloves and go collect a few Tesla cables. It’s got to be easier than scrabbling under a car to nick a catalytic converter. 

http://techzle.com/vattenfall-comes-with-a-solution-for-theft-of-tesla-charging-cables

Hexane

JKenH said:

Electric vehicle charging cable theft is on the rise

Contacted Tesla. They say it’s the third one this week that’s been stolen from that street!

It’s impossible to disconnect the car while the thing supplying the power is active. This means that someone is able to override the charge points, maybe by resetting them or tripping them out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/774we4/help_please_type_2_charging_cable_theft_but_how/

That reddit thread is three years old as far as I can see, and latest post three years ago as well. I remember seeing it (mentioned here?) last time around. So either Tesla or Salford council or Greater Manchester Police or someone have done something about it by now or they haven't.