Charging Cable Theft Prevention

Why cables are targeted

A charging cable is a length of heavy copper conductor, unattended, in a public place, attached to equipment that nobody is watching. The value is in the copper rather than in the cable as a cable, which shapes the whole problem.

• The theft takes seconds with hand tools and needs no skill
• The value to the thief is scrap weight, so a cut cable is as good as a whole one, which is why locks at the connector do not help
• The cost to the operator is far higher than the scrap value: a bay out of service, a replacement part, an engineer visit and a reputation problem
• Sites are typically unattended when it happens, so the fault goes unknown until a driver complains or an engineer visits

The asymmetry is the point. A cable worth a small amount as scrap costs a multiple of that to replace, and the bay earns nothing in the meantime.

How detection works

The approach is to make the cable itself something that can be monitored, rather than relying on the charger noticing that something changed electrically.

1. 1

   Beacons on the cable

   BLE beacons are attached to the charging cable. They are part of the cable assembly rather than part of the charger, which is what allows the cable to be monitored independently of whether a session is running.

2. 2

   Paired to the session management device

   The beacons associate with RIOD's EV charging session management device at the unit, so the system knows which cable belongs to which point and what its normal state looks like.

3. 3

   Detection on cut or removal

   When the cable is cut or taken, the expected beacon relationship breaks and the system raises an alert. Detection is immediate rather than waiting for the next session to fail.

4. 4

   Alert dispatch

   The alert goes to whichever destinations the site has configured, described in the next section.

Detecting at the cable rather than at the charger matters because a cable can be cut from a unit that is idle, and an idle charger has no electrical reason to notice.

What can be triggered

The response is configurable rather than fixed, because a basement in an apartment building and an unattended highway forecourt want different things to happen at two in the morning.

Combining them is the normal case. A local alarm interrupts, a camera captures, and the CMS makes sure it becomes a work order rather than an anecdote.

Deterrence and detection are different investments

Worth separating, because operators frequently buy one and expect the other.

• Deterrence makes the site look like a bad target: lighting, visible cameras, signage, cable management that does not leave loops hanging. It reduces attempts and does nothing about the attempt that happens anyway
• Detection does not stop the first cut. It shortens everything afterwards: response, evidence, replacement, and the bay being out of service
• The combination is what changes behaviour on a site, because a thief who triggers a response once tends not to return

Detection also has a value that has nothing to do with the thief: it tells you the bay is down within seconds instead of when a driver complains two days later.

What the system can and cannot tell you afterwards

• The exact time of the event, which is what makes camera footage findable rather than a search
• Which charge point and which cable stopped answering, so the replacement is ordered correctly first time. Not where along the cable it was cut, which the system cannot tell you
• The site state around it, including whether other bays were affected
• A record that supports an insurance claim, which is frequently the difference between a claim being paid and being argued about

The insurance point is undersold. A claim supported by a timestamped detection event and footage from that moment is a different conversation from a claim supported by somebody noticing on Monday.

What you can fit this to

Shipping today, and offered as a technology rather than as a catalogue product, which decides what it can be fitted to.

1. 1

   Cables already in the field

   The beacons retrofit. A site that has already lost cables does not have to replace its units or its cables to get the detection.

2. 2

   Chargers that are not ours

   It works on third-party chargers, taken with the management service. The beacon relationship is with the session management device rather than with the charger's own firmware, which is why the charger's make does not decide the answer.

3. 3

   Beacon life

   Five years, on the fitted battery.

4. 4

   Sites of any size

   A single unattended bay is as valid a case as a hundred. The economics are set by what a cable costs and how long a bay stays out of service, not by site count.