Warning to electric car owners as thieving gangs target home chargers – leaving motorists £700 out of pocket
By Paul Homewood
Yet another reason why people refuse to buy electric cars:
A warning has been issued to electric car owners as thieving gangs are now targeting home chargers, which would leave motorists with a £700 bill.
A meeting at the Hungerford Town Council’s highways and transport committee in the Thames Valley saw Councillor Alistair Fyfe note he heard a spate of thefts from residents at the town’s new Lancaster Park development.
Gangs are starting to turn their attention to stealing electric car chargers which motorists plug in at home to save going to public pay-as-you-go points where they could face lengthy queues.
Many people simply hook up their cables from their car to a socket in a garage or on an outside wall while they relax indoors, often leaving it connected overnight.
Thieves have realised the chargers and cables are easy to take and they can sell the cable on the second hand market for up to £200 – and the scrap value for the copper in the cable alone going for around £50.
Motorists could find themselves paying up to £700 for a brand new replacement charger.
The cables are sometimes stolen from the vehicle’s boot, but can also be removed at a charging point if the car is left unattended.
Councillor Fyfe told the meeting that up to fifteen chargers have been stolen from Lancaster Park alone.
‘Four or five were stolen from one particularly dark area and one or two residents weren’t happy about it being so dark.
‘Perhaps the developer Bewley Homes can look at lighting – they all pay a service charge to a management company to look after the grounds.’
Hungerford mayor Helen Simpson told the Newbury Weekly News she has been made aware of the issue and had raised it with the local neighbourhood police team.
‘We need to make people aware that it’s happening.’
Motorist organisations recommend installing CCTV where possible to deter thieves from stealing electric vehicle chargers from homes.
If the best suggestion is to install CCTV, EV owners really do face problems.
I had anticipated the odd problem with vandals, who would take great pleasure in unplugging the cable and chucking it over a neighbour’s fence. But I had not appreciated just how much they are worth.
Even scrap value would turn a healthy profit if you can nick half a dozen a night.
And bear in mind that the government wants to force us to charge up in the middle of the night, when nobody will be around.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
All new houses have EV chargers fitted. My house which is 2 years old has a charger which looks good, but is really only a standard socket and an RCD (both under protective plastic covers). It is in the garage. It is fantastic – I have my Austin Seven (1932) battery maintainer plugged into it. The A7 is always ready to go fully charged!!!!
You and your A7 are far more eco friendly than any BEV. I tried to make a similar point to a group of owners of large plastic diesel powered yachts who had been virtue signaling their eco bothering, not popular.
Even the few who actually sail those “diesel powered yachts” will be relying on fabric made from fossil fuels. To say nothing of wanting to plug in the “Shorepower” as soon as they moor up – can’t be doing without the Mod Cons they are used to at home…
Ho ho ho! EV’s really are becoming the ‘gift that keeps on giving’.
Virtue-signalling is getting more expensive by the day…..
I does seem like there is a concerted campaign to denigrate BEVs, I would just like to know who is behind this, so I can send them a a heartfelt “Thanks a lot keep it up”
When the charging cable is plugged in to a Tesla it is locked in place, so cannot be stolen. I can’t comment on other brands.
For the copper they could surely just cut it?
That would be a Darwinian solution to the thefy problem!
Not heard of insulted tools then…..
Can’t it be cut?
What with potential risk of fire, fast wearing tyres due to weight and torque, so risk of wheel theft. Now this. Soon it will be necessary to employ a security guard !
The authorities know this is not going to work on a large scale. It must be all part of their game plan to restrict us to 15 minute cities.
Yet crazies like Extinction Rebellion actually want this !
Take a look at this mother who thought of killing her two sons. These people are seriously off the scale.
“”I’m so worried about my kids’ future I’ve been arrested five times” – Bristol Live” https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/im-worried-kids-future-ive-8340751#comments-wrapper
“The authorities know this is not going to work on a large scale. It must be all part of their game plan to restrict us to 15 minute cities.”
I don’t think there has being any serious co ordinations (just few nutcases with ideas) just look at the mess that is smart meters (how many are dependant on the 2G mobile phone networks) and promoting heat pumps without increasing generating capacity in the UK but a corruption gravy train for many politicians and civil servants which will at some point run out of other people money.
We then have the power hunger managerial (middle) class types are actually clueless some of whom they are scientifically illiterate but have had a long standing fear/ resentment of the (white) working class who have actual skills necessary for survival and so need to look down upon this group to feel superior – why do you think they went after car & air travel (when they became affordable to the masses), grammar schools and wanting to sabotage & make private schools more expensive by adding VAT, battery electric cars or attacking any discussion about the academic situation of white working class boys as racism (I’m mixed race and it isn’t) just to name a few examples.
“Take a look at this mother who thought of killing her two sons. These people are seriously off the scale.”
Goodness, if this couldn’t look more and more like a suicide/ death cult ( how clueless are people to not realise without fossil fuels for modern agriculture for just fertilisers and machinery we would struggle to feed more than 1/2 of worlds population). Where the hell is social services to check on the wellbeing of her children as I sure this would be the case if this was an Christian couple and I though there were guidelines when talking about suicide especially pacts in the press especially as they are promoting her cause.
At least she is right about 1 thing “Women were suffering from mental health issues and were in distress and not getting the care they needed. They were badged as criminals. If there was the proper social care support or housing support these women wouldn’t be there.” – this women should have being sectioned who ever is responsible for the mess that is mental health care in this country should be held to account including misconduct in a public office.
As I said recently – never underestimate the ignorance and stupidity of politicians or civil servants. I always keep in mind Dr North’s observation that having spent years respecting these people from a distance, once he got to meet them he was amazed at how they even managed to get through the day. lucky no doubt that breathing is an automatic function.
”I’m so worried about my kids’ future I’ve been arrested five times” – Bristol Live” https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/im-worried-kids-future-ive-8340751#comments-wrapper ”
Indoctrinated by Extinction Rebellion and living in Brizzle is a potent mix.
It looks to me as though it’s just the connecting cable, not the charging point (charger) itself that is being stolen. The thieves simply walk up and un plug the cable from the charger and the car and walk off with it. Presumably that can happen at on-street charging points too. Tony Budd
As mentioed earlier, the car end is typically locked into the socket. The other end is hard-wired into the charger.
They could always try cutting the cables free…..
Perhaps local councils should stop switching off street lighting while it is dark.
>>can look at lighting
If you build it, they will come; and steal it.
“And bear in mind that the government wants to force us to charge up in the middle of the night, when nobody will be around.”
Are you sure?
Isn’t the idea that ev batteries are intended to supply the grid at night when the wind isn’t blowng?
well dont go to Plod if yours gets nicked. They are far to busy with hate speech to wory about your piffling problem
The ads for Kia EVs have the strap line: “Take the lead”….
Based on what we see on social media CCTV does not seem to deter thieves. Thugs in hoodies all looks alike.
After I stopped laughing, I thought back to the youtube video where a driver demonstrated the battery car failings and desperate for a charge he pulled the Audi into a dealership only to find normal cars blocking the charge points. On going to complain he was told it didn’t matter as the leads had been cut and nicked last night along with those at the Mercedes dealer opposite. Is it ironic that the increase in battery cars pushes up the price of copper making it more worthwhile to steal.
GPS tracker sellers take note.
I wrote to my MP in May last year regarding the Fire and Electrocution risks of EV’s as copy below, to which I received no further reply. I had a discussion with a recently retired Fire Officer, and he said the Government will take no action or even realise the significance of the problem until there is a multiple tragedy.
Letter sent on May 23rd 2022.
“I wrote to you in February 2020 about my concerns regarding the dangers, particularly of fires, in electric powered vehicles. The difficulty is that they are chemical reactions that are almost instantaneous and cannot be extinguished in the normal way.
Passengers, say in an Electric Bus, might have only a few seconds to escape a gigantic explosive toxic chemical inextinguishable fire.
I was particularly concerned that the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps MP, was totally unaware of these dangers when he answered a question in the House of Commons.
You kindly passed my enquiry to the Ministry of Transport, and I received a general reply, indicating that the Fire Service was capable of handling the situation.
The fire hazards are well documented in these few examples below. Note the speed and ferocity of the fires.
Imagine being in the Paris bus, disabled or trapped, shown in Video 3, with molten chemicals pouring down on you from batteries stored in the roof. All Electric buses in Paris were immediately taken out of service.
The Potters Bar fire on May 22nd 2022, yesterday, Video 4, caused all the electric buses to be withdrawn from service.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/entire-fleet-london-buses-taken-145222825.html
Videos of EV Fires
Hazards of Fighting EV Fires https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_bZu1YN2CY
1 China 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T71cVhxG_v4
2 Paris April 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7vnoniqj5U
3 Paris May 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM
4 Potters Bar May 22nd 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peT72jWHXfM
A further serious problem following an accident, is that the car chassis may become electrified with a high and lethal voltage.
I have asked several friends who have electric cars if they are aware that if they touch the ground at the same time as the car body in such a situation, they would probably be lethally electrocuted.
They all said they were unaware of the problem.
In a Hybrid-Electric International Motor Race at Spa in Belgium two weeks ago, a car developed a fault in the race, and the driver was told on his radio, after bringing the car to a halt, to jump off the car high enough so as not to touch the car and ground at the same time, as he could die from electrocution.
The marshals were made aware also not to touch the vehicle until it was made safe.
Tesla say that should an Electric car catch fire the best plan is to let it burn out as it cannot be extinguished.
A difficult thing to face up to if you were trapped.
Imagine a fire with 100 EV’s say in a Motorway Tunnel.
I think there should be an effort made to make the Public aware of these special risks inherent in electric vehicles.
I believe this information should be in the handbook of every EV that is sold and should be a legal requirement.
I believe that this is a very serious issue and the Government are complacent about it, and will only take action when there is a major tragedy.”
According to recent reports from China, their top brand, BYD, are having many battery fires, cars which will be making their way to us soon along with cheaper less well inspected EV’s from many unknown manufacturers….?
Waterlogged cars catch fire in floods as well.
Install the charging point inside your garage (rather than on the outer wall) & run the cable through a port of sorts.
Not so convenient perhaps, but increases resilience.
Fine if you have a garage, but thousands of people don’t.
Millions
And of course many people have to park their cars on the street. Not even a driveway, let alone a garage.
>>Fine if you have a garage, but thousands of people don’t.
Or use the Apple solution. Glue the car and battery to the driveway with a hundredweight of iPhone battery glue, then dare anyone to steal it.
“Not heard of insulted tools then….”
I don’t know about insulted, but they would be pretty p****ed off after cutting through a live 7kW+ charging cable!
So, you don’t just need your own charger, you need it INSIDE.
All those electric cars and heat pumps will cause no problems for the national grid as the last coal fired and old nuclear power stations are closed.
From the beginning I have pointed out that any electrical charging points, public or private, are subject theft and vandalism. Copper especially is high-value and will continue to exponentially increase in price as its use increases in an all-electric world.
If you think lawlessness will decrease in the Leftist’s Brave New World then you have another think coming. CCTVs simply record the disguised thief in the act. Roaming gangs don’t care, but you might catch a stupid, budding neighborhood thug from time to time. He’ll learn over time with OJT to become a better thief, however, and will move on to more violent crimes.
Oh! The schadenfreude. Econazis want looters to have their way. Well, there it is!