WEST SEATTLE CRIME WATCH: Theft puts second city-owned EV charger out of service; stolen-car suspect arrested

| Crime | West Seattle news

Two West Seattle Crime Watch reports this evening:

(Reader photo)

THIEVES SHUT DOWN ANOTHER CHARGER: Thanks for the tips. Seattle City Light confirms that both of its electric-vehicle chargers on 39th SW are out of service because of theft. One charger’s cable was cut/stolen in November; now the same thing has happened to the other charger. And SCL’s Jenn Strang told WSB today the charger hit first was hit again last month: “The cables on the northern station at Alaska Junction were stolen in November and December and cables on the southern station were stolen between January 9th and 10th. Given that all cables have been lost at the Alaska Junction location, City Light was unfortunately forced to set these stations to unavailable.” So what’s the plan now? we asked: “In November, we submitted a request for a full contingent of replacement parts for both stations and still await delivery from the manufacturer. We are looking at solutions to help mitigate this issue moving forward, while also attempting to source replacement and back up parts to minimize downtime impacting our customers.” We also asked how widespread the problem is; Strang replied, “City Light has had cables stolen from 8 chargers in the last year, and we are seeing similar impacts to other public charging providers.”

One item from today’s police reports:

THWARTED ESCAPE IN STOLEN CAR: Around quarter past 10 this morning in the 7700 block of Detroit SW in southeast West Seattle, police say, they spotted what turned out to be a stolen Ford Escape. As they drove up to the front of the parked car, its driver threw it in reverse – crashing into an SPD vehicle behind it – then, trying to go forward, crashed into the SPD vehicle in front. Police say this cycle repeated until the driver, a 33-year-old woman, finally surrendered. According to their report, they found – either on her or in the vehicle – “multiple credit cards, checks, IDs, and more than 200 pieces of mail, which did not appear to belong to the suspect (and) a ballistic vest … that had been stolen from a law enforcement agency.” She was booked into King County Jail.

Alki resident January 11, 2023 (6:25 pm)

This just confirms my plan to never own an electric vehicle EVER.

KM January 11, 2023 (10:04 pm)

Nothing bad has ever happened at a gas station, so I agree.
- Alki resident January 12, 2023 (10:04 am)
  
  We have gas station’s aplenty. And we don’t have to sit longer than 5 minutes to fuel up.
  - J January 13, 2023 (6:07 pm)
    
    Seriously. You still don’t understand the impact of fossil fuels? Exxon has known since the 1970’s. Anyway, these issues will be resolved, and the future is coming fast. Some folks are so yesterday.
Neighbor January 12, 2023 (1:05 am)

Just charge at home. Pretty simple.
- DC January 12, 2023 (9:01 am)
  
  Not everyone has a single family home with off street or reliable on street parking where they can charge the car… Isn’t that kind of the purpose of these public charging station? Give an option for those people.
  - Wseattleite January 12, 2023 (11:30 am)
    
    Those people need other options if they are to go EV. Unfortunately, the trend is to not even provide basic parking with housing these days, which will drive people away from EVs for that very reason. Status quo reigns supreme.
K to the F January 12, 2023 (7:34 am)

Most of the time you can charge at home. When on-the-road, most charging stations have many more chargers and it’s never a problem. One place truly lacking are apartment complexes. Happy to share my experience being EV-only anytime.tl;dr it’s no biggie and still pretty much just a car.
- DC January 12, 2023 (8:58 am)
  
  Not everyone has a single family home with off street or reliable on street parking where they can charge the car…
- Al King January 12, 2023 (11:35 am)
  
  K to the F. Reality check. There ARE many of us in older condos and apartments. Running a 200′ cord from my wall plug in?? Sorry, does NOT appeal to, or work for me. And, as this story highlights there’s NO guarantee that the charging station you need will be functioning let alone occupied by cars that could be there quite a while. Oh, another question. If you run a cord from your home to charge your car on the street and someone trips over it guess who’s liable-certainly no “pro electric” or the city will help you.
  - K to the F January 12, 2023 (6:35 pm)
    
    I always suggest reading a full comment before responding as I specifically call out apartments as a missing piece of the charging puzzle.

Kathy January 11, 2023 (6:33 pm)

So no working fast chargers, and only 2 locations with level 2 chargers in all of West Seattle (Fauntleroy Ferry and Walgreens at 16th and Roxbury). All the others are broken or in construction planning. Makes you wonder what is happening to our $75/year infrastructure fee. I asked our legislators and it seems everyone is waiting around for federal dollars.

Carol January 11, 2023 (6:57 pm)

Good grief, will this insanity never end!? Both stories are just maddening.

LAH January 11, 2023 (7:33 pm)

When will the madness end??? Why can’t WA legislate that anyone recycling material has to prove that the material came from a legitimate source? This would hold everyone in the cycle accountable. No more stolen bronze statues, construction equipment destroyed, catalytic converters. Is the common sense solution so difficult (rhetorical question)?

mjc January 11, 2023 (8:45 pm)

I was down at West Seattle Recycling (https://www.westseattlerecycling.com/) dropping off legit steel material to be recycled and four different vehicles pulled up selling copper in chunks of 1-3’. These were industrial 00 sized cable and a lil smaller. They asked for ID of the folks dropping it off but it really appeared to be copper thieves selling their take. Accountability, like in catalytic converter “recycling” actually needs to be enforced. Doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, sadly, driving up the market for those materials.

bolo January 11, 2023 (7:36 pm)

Unfortunately it looks like the EV charging stations are sitting ducks for their copper wire. Such a shame. Some mighty desperate people out there.

Mr J January 11, 2023 (7:41 pm)

There at several level 3 charging stations at Starbucks Corp in Sodo, it’s a little more expensive but they are faster than the ones on 39th. There’s also the City Light stations off Alaska on 4th, but those have been vandalized a lot lately.

R. Clark January 11, 2023 (8:46 pm)

Copper theives. My answer to that would be to make the charging cables out of bundles of thin stranded aluminum wire, instead of copper wire. It would mean a somewhat thicker cable, but not heavier. The total cross sectional area of the aluminum strands would have to be greater by the ratio of the conductivity of the two metals. And since aluminum isn’t as ductile as copper, the aluminum strands would have to be thinner than copper strands would be.But this is entirely practical. When the price of copper went up a few years ago, this is what happened to a lot of speaker wire. But typically they’d coat the aluminum wire strands with a thin coating of copper, to keep up appearances for consumers. For the charging cables, you wouldn’t have to do that.Run this past your electrical engineers, even if the politicians look askance at it. It’s a better answer than armoring the cables or increasing surveillance.

Dirk Diggler January 12, 2023 (8:39 am)

I wish we had more responses like these. This is actually useful if viable. Thank you!
Jethro Marx January 12, 2023 (12:20 pm)

Sorry, this is not viable. The cable would be enormous and would often fail, for a variety of fascinating/boring metallurgical reasons. The thieves would be happy to recycle the aluminum as well, they just wouldn’t get as much money. A retractable cable in a housing that opens upon payment sounds good though.
- WS Res January 12, 2023 (9:31 pm)
  
  Folks could just pay a buck or two to “charge” and then steal the cable.
  - CAM January 13, 2023 (12:14 am)
    
    No you can’t. You have to log in to be able to initiate charging in most instances or swipe a credit card.

Anxious Driver January 11, 2023 (8:50 pm)

Genuine question, please don’t bully me. Why don’t they have more CCTV’s at the charging stations? I know that the bad guys can wear masks, but sometimes they don’t..

Wes C. Addle January 12, 2023 (8:26 am)

Most of these “stations” are just 1 or 2 chargers in random parking lots. Can’t really dedicate resources to watch over these. There definitely needs to be more infrastructure. Tesla is so far ahead of everyone with their supercharger network
Dirk Diggler January 12, 2023 (8:42 am)

Great question – and bullies stink! I have found that cams are great for deterring semi-honest to honest people. Porch pirates have waived at mine with their masks and hoodies up just before taking shoes or what ever else they can grab from my front porch. They are certainly part of a solution as there is no real silver bullet (other than Coors Light – hmmm maybe a CL bait station near the charging stations??).

clinker January 11, 2023 (9:04 pm)

We’ll come up with solutions to this charger issue with armored cable, switching to aluminum conductors, additional security, or maybe a combination.It’s worth the hassle of figuring it out for our grandchildren’s sake.

blaughw January 11, 2023 (9:20 pm)

For SCL charging infrastructure, there needs to be a reporting mechanism for both equipment issues (inoperative or unsafe) as well as folks parking in the spots and making them unavailable to those who need the service. The former should generate a service request to SCL or their contractor. The latter does not need to, but it should inform placement and building needs (such as N+1 parking spots for the number of chargers). The 39th Ave charging “station” has weird cyclical usage patterns. It sees parking overflow from the churches, bowling, and Trader Joes at various times.

937 January 11, 2023 (9:47 pm)

Soooo….. Does this mean that NON electric vehicles can utilize those spots?

Until the stations are repaired, that is….

1994 January 11, 2023 (9:56 pm)

What about electric car drivers having their own cables to connect to the charging station? They can provide their own cables …then none are left hanging to be stolen.

uncle loco January 12, 2023 (5:02 am)

Then the thieves will be breaking into everyone’s car. Oh wait, that’s already happening.
Tb January 12, 2023 (6:59 am)

Ding ding. This is the idea.
KrisL January 12, 2023 (7:17 am)

Simple, and saves us all from addt’l costs
Mr J January 12, 2023 (9:11 am)

I’m assuming this is coming from a place of ignorance and that you do not have an EV and have never used these stations. EV owners usually have a hookup for home charging these cables are bulky and with a standard 120v outlet take about 2-days to charge you car. (They also cost nearly 2K) You can install a Level 2 charger at a significant cost, but that assumes you have a place to park your car (not all of us do). The City stations are Level 3 and it usually takes 40-50mins to charge your car. Great right? The level 3 cables are massive and cumbersome and I doubt most EV owners could afford such cables. It’s also incredibly ableist to say carry your own level 3 cables. Just sit with that and understand many people are differently angled and this would be a huge barrier to them. You have to have an account with many of these charging companies so it seems a fix could be to pay before the cable is accessible, not sure what that would look like but this will keep happening without some sort of counter measure.
blaughw January 12, 2023 (10:31 am)

These are fast charging stations capable of delivering 50kW+ Direct Current. “Bring your own cable” is not remotely viable. The “Level 2” charging equipment shipped with vehicles top out at 19 kW Alternating Current.
Bob January 18, 2023 (6:09 pm)

I think you’re really onto something. This could be a nationwide conversion, wherein EV manufacturers would provide said cable with each vehicle.

R. Clark January 11, 2023 (9:59 pm)

And slap some big labels on the cables, and prominent signs on the chargers, stating it’s ALUMINUM WIRE. So they don’t have to cut it off to find out.

Jay January 12, 2023 (8:42 am)

In my neighborhood they’ve been spotted stealing the ground wires from utility poles.

Curious January 12, 2023 (9:54 am)

I’m curious if there is a reason why EV owners don’t carry their own cable. As a previous boat owner it’s just common practice to have your own cable/cord to hook to shore power @ any dock.

Westwood January 12, 2023 (11:00 am)

As has been stated previously, the size and weight of a Level 3 charging cable (thicker than the average persons forearm) makes this impractical.
WS Res January 12, 2023 (12:42 pm)

We do often carry Level 1 cables but they take a lot more time than a Level 2 or Level 3.
- Curious January 12, 2023 (4:55 pm)
  
  Thank you! That makes sense. We need lighter portable cables that can handle a fast charge. They’re never going to stop stealing the “fixed” cables.
  - WS Res January 12, 2023 (9:38 pm)
    
    If you figure out how to change the laws of physics, let the rest of us know.

Bill January 12, 2023 (12:00 pm)

perhaps the cables should be left “live” so that when the thieves cut them, they have an “illuminating” experience! :) Seriously though, we probably need to make metal recyclers both legally and financially responsible for accepting stolen goods. They should be afraid to accept goods with no known provenance.

R. Clark January 12, 2023 (4:47 pm)

“The cable would be enormous and would often fail, for a variety of fascinating/boring metallurgical reasons.”But somehow the extremely high voltage transmission lines strung on those giant towers that carry power from hydroelectric dams to distant cities do not “often fail” for your “metallurgical reasons.” Those lines are all made of highly specialized aluminum alloys, with a carbon fiber core for strength. None of them are made of copper. They have to withstand a lot of repetitive wind loading for decades, and if they were pure aluminum and had no strong center core, yes, they would fail from fatigue. But they don’t. And although the charger cables do have different requirements than the transmission lines, my guess is that there’s enough accumulated expertise in the industry to make something workable.

bradley January 13, 2023 (10:01 am)

I’m waiting for the wireless Charging Pad that you park over to charge, like the phone chargers. Don’t worry, in 10 or 20 years someone will figure it out.

Mark Flores January 15, 2023 (4:29 pm)

3 EV charging stations inside Whole Foods on Fauntleroy was also cut.

Jay F. January 17, 2023 (1:36 pm)

There are four fast charging stations (Charge Pointe) in the Starbucks Headquarters parking lot (1st Ave South – SODO) for any EV users looking for another option. (and Security will likely squash any vandalism to these as well).

Sorry, comment time is over.