It appears that the anger and frustration with electric cars has reach a new level after several public EV charging stations were vandalized and rendered inoperable.
"In 2021, the number of U.S. registered light-duty electric vehicles on the roads reached 2.13 million vehicles, a sharp increase from the less than 100,000 EVs on the roads in 2012," according to the Energy Information Administration.
This is because sales are on the rise, with Edmunds reporting that nearly 10 percent of new car sales in early 2025 were EVs.
There has also been a dramatic increase in access to public charging stations — often found in grocery store parking lots. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in vandalism of these charging sites.
One Redditor shared their frustrating experience. They posted several photos and explained, "As if public charging isn't already challenging."
The images showed a bay of chargers as well as two closeups of cut cables. The poster also included a screenshot of the Electrify America app, which noted that all the stations at this site had been damaged.
While the poster likely made it home or to another charging site, this left them in a precarious position.
Vandalism sometimes seems to be a reaction to the assumed political leanings of EV owners, but it can also be about money. "Historically, most vandalism against EVs and charging infrastructure was committed by those with anti-EV beliefs or some personal vendetta. But more recently, thieves are just looking to make a quick buck by nabbing the copper material used in cable wiring," Inside EVs wrote.
Alongside damage to chargers, bad actors have keyed electric cars and rolled coal on people. The latter is a practice of dumping excess exhaust to show off how little the offender cares for the environment.
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