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EVs may be doomed, but not because of price or range anxiety. Instead, it may be that every public EV charger is a target for copper thieves. They can (and do) roll up, snip with some bolt cutters (or a handheld angle grinder), and make off with $20 or $50 in copper in less than a minute. They can work a whole row of charging stations in a few minutes, long before anyone can stop them.
Such attacks make the chargers worthless. And any obvious mitigation solution (like shielded cables) makes the charging station harder for legitimate users to use. This means that EV charging stations on the road become even less available than they already are. If the only charger you can use is the one in your garage, then EVs are off the table for road trips of any kind. This would relegate them to local use only, and only ever as a second car.
Am I overstating the repercussions?
Discussion (32)
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Long recharging times, spectacularly reduced range in cold weather, inherent battery inefficiency, sporadic spontaneous combustion, battery fires that are both toxic* fume generators and difficult to extinguish, and requiring an increase in our electric power generation capacity of around 30% ... there is no shortage of Achilles heels.
* Real toxicity, not the kind that I exhibit when I hold doors open for little old ladies.
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Much of our infrastructure is vulnerable in such ways: manhole covers, fire hydrants, electrical wiring, and so on.
That a used car market with EVs makes no sense has always been the most overlooked Achilles heel for me, here is yet another (mostly) fatal flaw in the concept. (How different does this whole gambit look if it starts off as a “only as a second car” concept? Better or worse? Certainly less costly and more effective.)
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We can hope that a few thieves electrocute themselves and it serves as a warning to others.
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The charging stations were supposed to spontaneously appear as people opted for electric cars. Instead we have to wait for Mayor Pete to build another 7 or 8 stations a year under a multi-billion dollar mandate. It is a bit like the claim that the ethanol subsidy and mandate were just a temporary measure to jumpstart the market which would take it from there.
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