It was a frustrating morning for folks looking to charge their Teslas at a Sunnyvale charging station on Monday. Marianne Favro reports.
It was a frustrating morning for folks looking to charge their Teslas at a Sunnyvale charging station on Monday.
Someone cut the cables to more than half a dozen chargers, making them useless. The incident happened at the Tesla charging station in the Target parking lot on West Mckinley Avenue.
Eight Tesla charging stations had been tampered with and crews with Tesla Energy spent hours installing new vehicle connectors.
The theft left Uber driver Aliakear Khadri scrambling to charge his car.
“I realized that a lot of chargers were cut by someone. So, I was shocked,’’ he said.
Officials with the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said they don't think this was the work of vandals but thieves going after copper wires.
“Generally when these thieves steal it, it is for the copper wiring. They use it to get money for the copper,” said Capt. Dzanh Le with the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety.
The incident was not the first time this has happened. In January, wiring from 24 charging stations was stolen at a private tech company in north Sunnyvale.
Sources told NBC Bay Area that there were 24 reports of Tesla charging stations not working Monday across the Bay Area. But they can't confirm how many were damaged by thieves or vandals versus simply malfunctioning.
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Drivers who regularly charge their cars at the station admitted they were rattled.
Authorities are now looking at surveillance video to see if it can help them identify a suspect or suspects.
