• lazynooblet
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    813 months ago

    They are starting to rip out the cables used in car chargers. It’s only 2m long, costs £300 to replace and the thief strips out £4 worth of copper.

    • @OmegaLemmy@discuss.online
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      323 months ago

      In turkey there are a lot of people who gather cardboard for recycling for a wage of about 30-40 dollars a day

      Is the USA version of this just pulling copper?

      • @MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        753 months ago

        Stealing copper, getting under older cars and cutting out catalytic converters, yes. Copper is not a big money maker but it’s better than collecting aluminum cans.

        The problem with 90% of crime is poverty. They do hundreds of dollars of damage to make a few bucks. If we had universal basic income or better safety nets these crimes would nearly vanish overnight.

          • @HereIAm@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Ah yes, the feudal system was ideal for fair treatment and everyone had a roof over their head and a full belly.

            They’re saying poverty is the source of these desperate crime. Doesn’t matter what economic or governmental rule you live under.

          • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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            3 months ago

            You’re a terrible human being with reading comprehension issues and a weak grasp of history. I would rate you better than our current president, who is a pedophile and a rapist. I would rate you on par with Alex Jones, who afaik is a loud mouth bigot with delusions of having cracked the code but has not directly raped anyone. This rating is based on 1 interaction. I do not wish to have more interactions.

      • @Serinus@lemmy.world
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        83 months ago

        Well, except that it’s nearly always super damaging.

        The US version would be more like collecting cans back when they had a 5 or 10 cent deposit. Today I can’t really think of anything like that. Maybe driving Uber/Lyft. Or just panhandling/begging.

        • Bob
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          43 months ago

          People do that now in the Netherlands. The bins on the streets of Amsterdam sometimes have little holsters for bottles and tins so you can leave them for people who’d otherwise (or I imagine who still) dig through the rubbish for the deposit.

    • If this is how the Western world arrives at harm reduction and UBI for everyone - that it’s just good business - I’m not even gonna be mad.

        • @Shard@lemmy.world
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          12 months ago

          It’s not that £4 cable costs £300. £4 is the scrap value of the copper once the insulation has been peeled off. Freshly made cable costs a bit more than that.

          It costs £300 to fix because of the cost of the cable, labour and the workmanship.

          • @Comment105@lemm.ee
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            12 months ago

            Well, the ones making the cable still probably only make a small fraction of the value in labor. The majority of the inflated price goes to C suite paychecks.

            I remember when I made 10s of thousands worth of cable every day from cheap materials and walked away with a couple thousand a month. I ended up quitting that job, but the slightly mentally challenged woman there who was the most efficient and accurate to spec probably still sits there making cables every day.

    • @RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      53 months ago

      That will be great when I’m on a long trip looking to charge in the middle of nowhere lol.

      I have actually been stranded a couple of times already. Still love electric though

      • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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        23 months ago

        It’s not a long distance and they don’t have super large gauge. I’d have expected 0 or 2/0 but apparently 2-4 is common.

    • @DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      -143 months ago

      1: Why’s it $300 then?

      2: All theft from Tesla owners is valid in 2025

      3: Why do people assume they aren’t selling the expensive cables whole?