Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV talks about the rising theft of cables from electric vehicle charging points.

Express & Star

Transcript

00:00So here with Asif Ghafoor, you're the CEO of BEV Energy. If you just want to introduce yourself.

00:05Yes, so I'm the chief exec of BEV. We're one of the UK's largest charge point operators, rolling out nationally.

00:13And we're here at Wensbury.

00:16Absolutely, yes. So let's have a little bit of talk of what's going on here.

00:19Obviously, we had the press release saying that all the cables have been cut, vandalised, and the cable had been stolen.

00:27So just talk a little bit about what's going on here.

00:30Yeah, so we installed the site only in December, got everything live.

00:34And the process takes a long time, takes like 18 months again, from start to end.

00:39And someone came along and cut nine cables one night.

00:44Well, not even night, actually at 8pm, just as the store had closed.

00:48And then came back a few days later and took the remaining seven.

00:51So we ended up with no chargers to be able to get the cars connected to.

00:56Absolutely.

00:57Yeah, so we're on a, obviously we're on Gallagher retail part.

00:59We're just outside the Catalan, which is where this sits.

01:01You can see on the side of, you can see on the side of this one.

01:05It's currently covered in blue tape, obviously, to make it safe.

01:08I mean, what's the inherent dangers of cutting through these cables?

01:11Well, you're a bit of an idiot, I think is the best way to describe it.

01:15Because these are 150 kilowatts of power being distributed to vehicles.

01:20And if you cut in the wrong part of the cable, you could actually cause damage to yourself as well.

01:28And the material value for risking your life?

01:31Yeah.

01:32You'll get 15 quid.

01:33Yeah.

01:34Which is just ridiculous.

01:35So you said this is just one of the stack of units that you've got down here in the West Midlands.

01:40I mean, you said that there's been a similar incident in Birmingham as well.

01:43Is it a rising issue in the West Midlands?

01:44Yeah, no, we talked to all of our competitors and peers in the market, and they're all getting hit.

01:51West Midlands, in particular, seems to be a bit of a black spot.

01:54From South Yorkshire down to West Midlands, seems to be a lot more cable theft going on.

02:00So you said, obviously, the cable, you said around about £15 they might go for.

02:05I mean, what's the cost to yourself? How much did it cost to replace these units?

02:08Well, the first cost is agony. I'm like, it's just the pain of it all.

02:12But the actual financial cost, we've lost about £100,000.

02:15So these cables are pretty heavy cables for the amount of power required and, of course, lost income.

02:24So it's quite a big loss for a very small gain for somebody else.

02:28Absolutely. But you said as a whole, there's a whole sort of thing.

02:32It's going to be millions that have been lost due to the vandalism.

02:35Oh, yeah, yeah.

02:36If you go across some of the other sites which have been hit for our site and our competitors,

02:43then we're into millions already.

02:45And we need to kind of find a way to be able to stop this.

02:48Absolutely. And sort of looking into the future, I mean, what more can be done?

02:52Well, we're joining up forces, actually. So there's quite a concerted effort now happening with the other charge point operators in the market.

02:59We're trying to coordinate activity with the police.

03:01We're going to now start targeting scrap yards as well to ensure they stop taking copper like that.

03:08So your increased chances of arrest are greatly going up.

03:13We've done poster campaigns, wanted campaigns. We're making national activity.

03:18And we're also adding in extra protection like a sock, which has a high-pressured liquid in it.

03:25So if anyone does, it's very hard then to cut through.

03:28And that's being installed actually here in a few weeks' time.

03:31OK. And is this something like the continuance of the vandalism?

03:37Is this something that you see carrying on into the future as more of these bays are put up?

03:42Well, to be honest, we'll all become victims in this process.

03:46The excitement is we're building an electric revolution here.

03:49We're cleaning the air. We're driving people to better, sexier cars.

03:54And in the meantime, we've got this kind of hassle going on.

03:57And we've got to sort this out and stop it.

04:00We've got to take control of it ourselves and manage this.

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