Tesla was the victim of a theft that resulted in having to shut down a brand new Supercharger station, as all the cables on the eight stalls were cut off.
The automaker is currently working to triple the size of its Supercharger network over the next two years.
It is currently growing at a record pace.
Tesla went from 23,277 Superchargers at 2,564 stations at the end of 2020 to 31,498 Superchargers at 3,476 stations at the end of 2021.
We are seeing Tesla open several new stations every day.
One of those new stations is a new eight-stall V3 Supercharger station in Oakhurst, California.
However, when members of the Tesla Motors Club forum wanted to go check out the new station, they found that all stalls were missing their charging cables.
A closer examination shows that they were completely cut off (picture via Randy Spencer on TMC):
Tesla Supercharger stations have been subject to vandalism in the past.
A Supercharger station in Utah had to be shut down a few years ago after people intentionally damaged it.
This new instance in California could be vandalism, but the goal was most likely to steal the cable for the copper inside.
They manage to cut all of them clean off undetected, which could point toward criminals who knew what they were doing.
This can be a problem with charging stations, as they are often unattended, and in this case, it was a brand new station that Tesla owners didn’t even know about just yet.
It looks like charging station operators are unfortunately going to have to take vandalism and theft into account for their operations to keep the stations online as much as possible.
If this continues to be an issue, investing in some surveillance equipment is also not going to be a luxury.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
