{"id":17447,"date":"2026-05-19T13:34:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17447"},"modified":"2026-05-19T13:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:34:59","slug":"public-electric-vehicle-charger-useless-after-copper-cables-chopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17447","title":{"rendered":"Public electric vehicle charger useless after copper cables chopped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A public electric vehicle charger in Wellington has been left without charging cables, prompting a police report for copper theft.<\/p>\n<p>Hutt Valley resident Michael Taylor was in his friend&#8217;s vehicle on Friday, when they pulled up to a high capacity charger by Avalon Park.<\/p>\n<p>They hoped to charge up fast, but were halted by the cut wire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got there and all of the copper cables from the cabinet were basically all chopped off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--12qvQn8m--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1779137735\/4JOLFG4_IMG_2652_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"A Hutt resident found the cables broken.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">A Lower Hutt resident found the cables broken.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Michael Taylor<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>While there were other places nearby to charge up, Taylor said it was inconvenient and a &#8220;major pain in the neck&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Meridian, who own the EV chargers, said they were really disappointed their public EV chargers had been damaged.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At a time of increased fuel prices, public EV chargers offer people a lower-cost option for their travel,&#8221; Lisa Hannifin, Meridian chief customer officer said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re currently looking into the extent of the damage and how long it will take to repair them, as well as reviewing CCTV footage and working with police.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hutt Valley area commander inspector Wade Jennings said police received a report of a copper theft in the Hutt Valley, and are making enquiries into the matter.<\/p>\n<p>However, he said police had not seen a noticeable increase in these incidents.<\/p>\n<p>He advised the public to call 111 if they see a theft or any suspicious activity.<\/p>\n<p>Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A public electric vehicle charger in Wellington has been left without charging cables, prompting a police report for copper theft. Hutt Valley resident Michael Taylor was in his friend&#8217;s vehicle on Friday, when they pulled up to a high capacity charger by Avalon Park. They hoped to charge up fast, but were halted by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17449,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447\/revisions\/17449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}