'Nationally, it has cost millions' - Electric vehicle CEO talks about repeat vandalism of charging cables
An electric vehicle charging founder has talked of the costs of repeated vandalism of charging ports following repeated incidents.
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Be.Ev co-founder and CEO, Asif Ghafoor, has talked about the rising issue of cable theft following repeated incidents at their charging ports across the West Midlands.
The rise in concern comes after nine charging cables were vandalised and stolen from an EV charging bay in Gallagher Shopping Park, Wednesbury, on March 12, only days after previously being vandalised in another incident.
"Across the whole industry, it has cost millions," said Mr Ghafoor, who co-founded Be.Ev in 2020.
"It's a repeated incident. We had someone hack through and steal all of the cables on this site, that was only days after they were first installed, and then we have recently had another incident in Birmingham too. It's a real problem."
The incident in Wednesbury cost the company around £100,000 to replace all nine cables, however, overall, Mr Ghafoor said repeated theft has 'cost the industry millions'.
He said: "To replace these ones it has cost us around £100,000, which when you consider that the cables only sell for around $15 as scrap metal, it's terrible.
