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