Thieves steal high-voltage Tesla Supercharger cables from Montrose charging station

HOUSTON – Imagine walking into a gas station and discovering that someone has cut all the pipes connected to the pumps.

That’s the equivalent of what happened this weekend at a Houston-area electric vehicle charging station.

Drivers pulled into the Tesla Supercharger on Kipling Street to find that all but one of the cords to plug into their vehicle had been cut and stolen.

The Houston Police Department told KPRC 2’s Gage Goulding that cables from 18 of 19 charging stations were stolen, according to a report filed Monday by a Tesla service technician.

“Yeah, I would be pretty upset about that,” said Alex Longo, who is passing through Houston on his way to San Antonio. “I would have been in trouble.”

You probably would too if you really needed to use that charger and the plug and cord were missing.

“I mean, I love my electric vehicle but the anxiety of running out of juice,” Vincent Evangelista said while charging his Tesla.

Tesla Supercharges have recently been opened up to other vehicle makes and models to also tap into the vast network of electric vehicle chargers built by Elon Musk.

Superchargers get their name from the impressive jolt they are capable of giving electric vehicles in such a short time.

At this location, they can provide a maximum charging rate of 250 kW at 500 volts DC.

Simply put, that’s enough electricity to power more than three average American homes.

So what would happen if you came into contact with that much energy?

“Oh, that would kill you in an instant,” said Cameron Trial, owner of CPR EV Repair.

But this is not the case. For what?

“The cables themselves are not under tension. The compressor has to establish communication with the car before feeding the cable,” Trial said. “But that doesn’t mean you might have a faulty compressor. That the cable was still under tension. And if that’s the case, and you try to move past it, you’re going to kill yourself.

This leads him to believe that whoever is behind this crime probably knows what they are getting into.

The trial was able to find two reasons.

“Personally, I think it’s an anti-EV movement,” he said.

Someone who hates electric cars so much that he would risk crime and his life.

Or it could be what’s underneath the cable’s black coating: copper.

“For the amount of work it took to get there and the risks it takes, it’s not worth your life,” Trial said.

Copper thefts are a problem in the Houston area, so much so that the Houston Police Department has a metal theft unit.

However, it is too early for investigators to characterize copper theft as a motive in this case.

Tesla did not respond to KPRC 2’s request for comment. However, all chargers were replaced and functional as of Monday evening.