Electric vehicles are slowly making their way into the heart — and driveways — of Americans, but some acts of vandalism are endangering this fragile new love.
"I don't know who, or why ... but it's sad," one Redditor wrote to the members of subreddit group r/TeslaLounge, as they shared proof that equipment for EVs was popular among thieves.
In their picture, a station is deprived of connectors for superchargers, which can add up to 200 miles of range in just 15 minutes, according to Tesla, the operator of the largest fast-charging network in the world.
The U.S. is struggling to adopt EVs, mainly due to high upfront costs, low charging station availability, and driving range concerns. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Tesla, which produces the best-selling EV globally — the Tesla Model Y, has lost more than a third of its market value this year, as the Motley Fool states, a result of a drop in demand, allegedly misleading company policies and the latest role of his owner in the Trump administration.
Obviously, vandalism targeting charging stations only risks slowing down the widespread adoption of EVs.
And yet, it is essential to curtail planet-warming gas pollution from the transportation sector, which accounted for the largest share of U.S. pollution in 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explains.
If worries about the pollution stemming from extracting critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel to produce an EV battery are justified, EVs have a much lower environmental impact than internal combustion engine vehicles using dirty fuels over their full life cycle, from manufacturing to the exhaust pipe.
And Redditors know it.
"So, that's why the station was down this morning. Brutal," one commented.
"This is why we can't have nice things," another said.
"Copper scavenging is becoming a real problem in a lot of places," a third Reddit user wrote.
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