Huge blind spot risk to the EV market
With copper surging above $10,000 per tonne, there’s $140-680 literally dangling up for grabs, in places where no one is watching at night. All solutions to this problem will come at tremendous cost.
The phenomenon that thieves are cutting cables for the copper is not new, but with copper prices surging above $10,000 per tonne, it has become considerably more lucrative. Now there's $140-680 literally dangling up for grabs, in places where no one is watching at night.
The Tesla public charging cable has 5 main copper conductors, each with an estimated diameter of 7mm. The cable length is 1 meter. Each conductor has a cross-sectional area of approximately 38.5 mm², resulting in a total cross-sectional area of 192 mm² for all conductors. The volume of copper in the cable is 192,400 mm³ (192.4 cm³). Using copper's density of 8.96 g/cm³, the weight of the copper is calculated to be 1.7246 kg, which is 0.0017246 tonnes. With a copper price at 10,000 USD per tonne, the value of the copper in the 1-meter cable is approximately 17.25 USD.
The number of chargers at a Tesla Supercharger station can vary widely depending on the location and demand. However, here are some common configurations:
- Small Stations: Typically have around 4 to 8 chargers.
- Medium Stations: Usually have 10 to 20 chargers.
- Large Stations: Can have 20 to 40 chargers or more.
Meaning that there's literally $140-680 dangling and up for grabs for anyone with a $20 bolt cutter.
These are often situated in locations that are near impossible to protect efficiently. Adversely a destroyed supercharger has a substantial replacement cost ($3,000 per cable).
Despite the Security theme beeing hotter than ever, there is to my knowledge no company offering a valid solution to this.
Gated security and charging floor mats are all solutions at considerable cost, and likely not viable near term options.
Only current option is manned security, like Securitas. This will also come at a tremendous cost to EV charging providers and eventually consumers. So Long Securitas/Short Tesla?
