ChargePoint says its new non-cutting EV charging cable will thwart vandalism

On top of the many obstacles to boosting EV adoption in the United States, matters are made worse when public EV chargers are vandalized by cut cables, rendering the chargers useless. Sometimes this is done out of disdain for electric cars, other times thieves strip the cables of copper. Either way, it’s just another problem threatening the industry at a time of slowing growth.

Now, a leading developer of public charging infrastructure says it has designed a cable that’s difficult to cut.

ChargePoint CEO Rick Wilmer spoke Ars Technica He explained how he decided to take action after chargers at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley repeatedly went out. Here’s how he describes making the new cable:

“I literally got so frustrated… I was at home in my workshop, building prototypes and taking all my crappy tools out there, trying to cut them, seeing what we could come up with,” Wilmer told me. It’s a simple idea, involving hardened steel and “some other polymer materials that are difficult to cut,” Wilmer said.

Claiming that the cable is “unbreakable” is unfortunately problematic. Someone will see that as a challenge. In the same sense, you don’t want to call the boat unsinkable, it’s better to say this new cable is cut.resistance. Fortunately, ChargePoint has also developed an alarm that is connected to the cable and will start beeping loudly when it senses a cutting attempt. This should do a lot of work in dissuading would-be thieves. Passers-by in a shopping center parking lot will quickly notice if this alarm starts going off.

We shouldn’t live in a world where this is necessary in the first place, but that’s where we are.

ChargePoint says its network now includes more than 38,500 stations with nearly 70,000 total charging ports. In order to make this new technology as widely available as possible, the company says it will license it to other cable vendors who produce chargers for electric vehicle networks.

Public chargers remain a major weakness in the electric vehicle rollout, with frequent outages or inconsistent and unpredictable charging speeds. It is worth noting that the infrastructure supporting combustion engine vehicles has been developed over a long period and has involved much of the government’s own investment. We should continue to expect the full EV infrastructure to continue to mature, even if the growth rate of the US electric industry is stagnating (sales are down). Still growing overall(at a lower rate than in recent years).

It’s a very different story in China, where electric cars are quickly coming to dominate the car market thanks to prioritization by the Chinese Communist Party. The infrastructure supporting the vehicles is somewhat more mature, and recent estimates indicate that the country has installed more than 3 million public chargers. The outgoing Biden administration had hoped to be more modest 500000 It will be installed in the United States by 2030. We may not even make it happen if the next administration follows through on its threats. Cutting support for industry