Frustrated electric vehicle owner shares photos of senseless act at local charging station: 'It's everywhere'

Electric vehicles, while eco-friendly and economical, are quite controversial. Some claim that the mining for minerals used in EV batteries offsets the cars' low-carbon output.

In fact, Sustainability by Numbers, using data from the International Energy Agency, said producers annually mine around 7.7 million tons of minerals for low-carbon technologies. The pollution from mining, however, does not hold a candle to that caused by gas-powered vehicles.

This controversy is one potential reason that people often vandalize EV charging stations and the vehicles themselves.

One Nevada native, frustrated by this senseless defacement, shared photos on Reddit of a damaged EV charging station.

"Somedays I hate this town," they said. "Happy to see more EV charging stations. Sad to see the opportunist that likely vandalized it…"

Someone cut the cords on the pictured charging station in Reno. When damage like this is done, consumers can be put off from purchasing their own EV, as it makes charging a hassle.

While vandals may believe they are morally righteous, electric batteries save drivers money and enable us to use clean energy instead of dirty energy sources like coal, oil, and natural gas.

According to Sustainability by Numbers, mining quantities for low-carbon clean energy sources will be 500 to 1000 times less than dirty fuel production.

"We can't build low-carbon energy without digging minerals out of the earth. We have to compare it to the problem that we're trying to solve," wrote Sustainability by Numbers.

Once in use, the only pollution from EVs comes from charging. This pollution, however, is less than that of gas-powered vehicles.

When you think about owning an EV, what concerns you most about public charging stations? Chargers not working 🚫 Chargers not being available 😥 Charging being too expensive 💰 Charging taking too long ⌚ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

Vandalism to EV charging stations and vehicles is a waste of the resources used for charging and producing these electronics, and it does nothing to help the climate crisis.

One Redditor noted how widespread the destruction to charging stations is: "It's everywhere, not just here. I just returned from a trip to Scandinavia and one of our legs of rail travel got cancelled because thieves stole the copper from the rail line cables between Oslo and Gothenburg. None of the locals were surprised because it apparently happens all the time."

"That's terrible," another said. "Need to install cameras."

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