LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A crime caught on camera in Henderson is just one instance of a much larger problem, one that’s being seen far beyond the Vegas Valley.Surveillance video captured in the middle of the night earlier this week, shocked the homeowners.
They had no idea until looking at the video someone would want to steal their EV charging cable. FOX5′s Kim Passoth met with them at their home.
In the video, a guy with a shirt tied around his head covering his face goes into the driveway and repeatedly tugs the EV charging cord trying to rip it out. It is mounted inside the garage with the cable running under the closed garage door. He runs away as one of the homeowners got an alert on her phone the cable had become disconnected, and she opened the front door.
“I thought it was me. I thought I didn’t plug it in correctly… When I went to check it, I was so surprised cause the cord was all the way in the middle,” said Lori, who asked her last name be withheld.
Why would the criminal want to do this? The cables have copper inside and can be sold for $15 to $20 at a scrap yard. “From now one we are going to be charging our car in the late afternoon and making sure that we are done with it before we go to bed so there won’t be any of those crimes of opportunity,” stated Glenn, Lori’s husband.
Commercial charging stations are bigger targets with more cables to steal. FOX5 visited one at Bonanza and Pecos where cables were cut. Drivers say it’s been hit multiple times.
“Half the time at this place here, only one is available and there are six cars waiting to use it… that is six hours to wait to charge your electric car,” reported Kenneth Thomas, an EV driver.
In Oakland, vandals sliced through nearly a dozen charging cables leaving one charging station out of commission for at least a week.
In the Reno area, it took several weeks to get cables fixed at outside one motel as charging stations outside two malls were also under repair making it difficult for some EV drivers to find somewhere to charge up.
How big of an issue is this becoming? Electrify America which has about 1,000 charging stations across the country told the Associated Press as of May, 129 cables had been cut this year. We reached out to the company about their chargers here in Nevada including those at Pecos and Bonanza and so far, have not heard back.
FOX5 also reached out to Henderson, Metro, and North Las Vegas police. North Las Vegas said they haven’t had reports of EV cable theft in the last year. Metro said they have not heard of problems commercially in their jurisdiction. Henderson asked an open records request be filed.
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