Could copper theft slow Los Angeles’s move towards a zero-emissions future? Thieves are targeting electric vehicle charging stations for copper wire — cutting cords and even breaking into chargers using hacksaws. It’s a costly fix to repair the vandalized stations.
Now, there are new efforts underway to prevent copper wire theft.
“All our focus is, ‘How do we accelerate transportation electrification?’ More EVs, cars and trucks on the road, more charges in the ground by the time the world arrives for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028. How do we show the world what we’re made of? We don’t want to show them a world where the Sixth Street Bridge and all the EV chargers are clipped with copper theft,” said Matt Petersen, the CEO of Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)…