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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.
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.
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.
Michigan still does 10 cents a bottle
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
£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!
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.