Thieves have destroyed 20 brand-new electric vehicle chargers in Ballarat, Victoria, as the third world problem of copper theft worsens across Australia.
A disappointed driver shared a video of the destruction on social media on Sunday showing the line of 20 Tesla Superchargers outside a shopping centre in Lucas with their cables removed. Another six were hit in Wendouree, and two more at Bedggoods Kia.
“Very sad to see this. So many people will be affected by this, not just Tesla users but [all] EV users,” Kevin Soo said in a video posted on Tesla Owners Australia.
On Monday he shared an update showing the charging stations being repaired, and said six had been fixed.
Authorities are also investigating whether cable theft was behind a rail equipment fault that shut down train services between Ballarat and Ballan on Monday morning, forcing commuters onto coaches.
Copper thieves hit 20 brand-new Tesla Superchargers in Ballarat, Victoria.
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One person who was on board a train bound for Ballarat said passengers were told copper theft caused the suspension, The Courier reported.
Professor of Transport Technology and Sustainability at Swinburne University Hussein Dia told Yahoo that electric vehicle charging cable theft was “becoming a more significant infrastructure issue in Australia”, and warned the incidents “undermined confidence in public chargers”.
“We have now seen incidents reported in different states, including Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and some locations appear to have been targeted repeatedly,” he said.
South Africa-style copper theft has been on the rise in Australia in recent years, with scrap metal thieves causing phone and internet outages and knocking out street lights.
The South Australian government last year introduced a bill to crack down on scrap metal theft after more than 2,000 incidents at building sites in 2023-24, costing an estimated $70 million a year.
In Queensland, copper theft has been costing state-owned electricity distribution operators about $4.5 million every year – prompting them to replace thousands of kilometres in underground and overhead copper cabling across the state’s southeast with less valuable aluminium.
Header image: Left, right, the damaged Superchargers (Kevin Soo – Facebook).
