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CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 DEED
by Debbie Burke
Sales of new electric vehicles appear to be flattening somewhat due to long charging times required and lack of charging facilities.
But perhaps the most disillusioned EV drivers are criminals who tried to use them as getaway cars.
In a case from March 2023, police in Buford, Georgia apprehended two people at a Tesla charging station. They were suspected of stealing more than $8000 in electronics from Sam’s Club, a mere 10 miles away. Seems they forgot to charge their getaway car before the job.
Oops.
Even more ironic is the March 2024 story of a stolen Tesla belonging to Fox TV reporter Susan Hirasuna. Hirasuna had gone to a concert in downtown Los Angeles and came out to discover her Tesla had been stolen. But before she had time to report the theft, another report came into police of a car driving recklessly on Wall Street.
HIrasuna’s app showed that as the location of her car.
And…the battery range was down to 15 miles.
Police pursued her stolen car until it ran out of power and came to a stop in East Hollywood. One suspect was soon taken into custody but apparently two others were involved and escaped.
In a twist worthy of crime fiction, blood was found inside Hirasuna’s Tesla that tied to an earlier assault with an axe on a victim (who fortunately survived). The car was processed for fingerprints, and the search is on for suspects who are still at large.
Memo to criminals:
- EVs are not reliable as getaway vehicles.
- EV locations can be tracked so the cops know exactly where you are.
- Stealing or carjacking an EV may not get you far enough to successfully outrun your misdeeds.
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TKZers: Have you heard of other crimes related to EVs?
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The criminals in Debbie Burke’s Tawny Lindholm Thriller series are too smart to depend on EVs to elude capture.
Electric car fail. Shocking!
Ba-da-boom!
Good one for this early in the morning, Jim 🙂
They’re currently unreliable.
I read this to my husband, career law enforcement. He laughed and said, “Thank goodness for the stupid ones.” He came across a lot of them over the years.
Becky, glad to give your husband a chuckle. Please thank him for his service.
Good morning, Debbie. Thanks for the laughs.
The biggest crime related to EVs is the deception of EVs being foisted on the American public. The great majority of electricity generated to charge the EVs comes from fossil fuels. The percentage of use of coal has increased since the use of EVs. The harm to the environment from mining for rare minerals and production of the batteries is worse than the harm from gasoline/diesel powered engines. I won’t go on. No one wants to hear this. I will add that I don’t enjoy subsidizing the production and sales of EVs as a tax payer. That should be a real crime.
But, back to the future. Someone should invent a dry ice sprinkler for helicopters to cool EVs that are being chased by the cops. EVs’ performance is poor in cold weather. Oh, and some crimes should carry the penalty that the criminal, in the future, will be allowed to drive only EVs. Oh, yes.
Thanks for allowing me to rant. I feel better now.
Hope you have an EV-free day!
Steve, EVs don’t do well in Montana cold. Hybrid gas/electric combos make more sense and are quite popular here.
Have a great writing day.
Great rant, Steve! Couldn’t have said it better. 🙂
Sorry you’re so down on EVs, Steve. We’ve been driving a Hyundai Kona for 18 months. We traded a $95/month gas bill for an $8.50/month electric bill increase. We’re in the Pacific Northwest where our power comes from hydro, not fossil fuels. As to the issues with rare earths and lithium batteries, plants in Europe and California are already shipping salt-based batteries for golf carts and expect to have batteries for cars in the next year. Those batteries use neither lithium nor rare earths. They aren’t affected by cold temperatures, either.
We’ve allowed fossil fueled vehicles to pollute our air for a century. Surely we can’t complain about a decade of development of EVs that hold the promise of a cleaner future?
100% correct. I did my first energy studies in 1963/63. I looked at everything, including compressed air and flywheels. Nuclear is the best by far, though a bit impractical for auto use. Second place? Gasoline and other hydrocarbons. Electric vehicles mean turning the clock back to the 1900s, every car a potential battering ram to destroy whatever it hits, along with the owner’s wallet.
Your rant is right on target. I’m 100% solar and my choice of battery for it was deep cell regular batteries. I couldn’t seen wasting electricity to heat lithium batteries so they would work in our winter (it does get cold in N. AZ) and I can’t see buying something that is toxic to our environment if I have an alternative. I’m still laughing at the CA couple who bought the place beside ours. They had an EV car and discovered very quickly it didn’t do well on muddy dirt roads after having it unstuck 4 times in less than a week. They moved two weeks later.
Gotta love stupid criminals. As a get away car? Great. Tesla Plaid will break 150 pretty easily. (I may or may not have taken one to 110ish on a test drive). As a stolen get away car? Comes with lojack and tracking. I think you can brick the car as well.
Alan, you sent me to Merriam-Webster with the term “brick.”
“to render (an electronic device, such as a smartphone) nonfunctional (as by accidental damage, malicious hacking, or software changes)
… those who dared hack the phone to add features … risked having it “bricked”—completely and permanently disabled—on the next automatic update …”
Thanks for expanding my vocabulary!
What if someone calls you “a brick,” Debbie?
Back to Merriam-Webster, J!
a good-hearted person
3
: a rectangular compressed mass (as of ice cream)
4
: a semisoft cheese with numerous small holes, smooth texture, and often mild flavor
5
: GAFFE, BLUNDER —used especially in the phrase drop a brick
6
: a badly missed shot in basketball
EVs are here. Yesterday I was at an intersection with two Rivians and a Tesla. Hard to think of my Prius as the gas guzzler in the group, but there I was.
Got a real *buzz* from this post, Debbie!
And, really, criminals aren’t rocket scientists anyway so why are surprised when they do stuff like this?
Happy buzzing this fine Thursday morning . . .
🙂
Best wishes on your upcoming appearance at the Seattle writing conf, Deb. I know you’ll “fly” through it.
Thanks for the laughs this morning, Debbie! Love to see the bad guys getting in their own way. People who steal electric cars should have to go to the electric chair.
When I renewed the registration for my Camry Hybrid this year, I was charged a $100 Electric Vehicle fee. I called every county and state official I could think of to explain my car is not an EV. I couldn’t use an electric charging station even if I wanted to. I have yet to find a person who will take responsibility and refund my $100. The steam coming out of my ears could probably power a locomotive from Memphis to Nashville. 🙂
Kay, their motto is never miss a chance to charge a fee or penalty, whether or not it’s justified. Harness that steam power from your ears–it’s green, although hard on your blood pressure!
I had to buy a new car a week before Covid exploded at the same time as the taxes were due on my old car, now completely totaled. I paid the yearly taxes on my old car, but the state decided I should pay for the new car instead. I paid for the new car. The check came back, and they asked for payment for the old car. Rinse and repeat SIX TIMES. I ended up sending two checks, asked them to make up their dang minds, and finally made them happy. Our government at work.
In Washington State, the DMV charges $35/year for EVs, but the fee isn’t for charging stations. Our road maintenance is paid for through a gas tax so the fee is needed to make up for the uncollected tax.
“There is no art one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.” –Adam Smith, 1776.
I was rather hoping the EV was a rogue taking itself on a joy ride.
That’s funny, Marilynn. A self-driving runaway. Sounds like a great short story idea.
Love it.
I am reminded of the recent video in which two young men tried to car-jack a man at the gas station. They had to immediately flee the scene on-foot as the car was a stick-shift and neither could drive it.
Thanks for that story, Robert. Too funny.
I don’t have an EV story, but I’ll be using these on my Dumb Criminal Mystery Question Blog next week. The trouble will be making up one to match these dummies. But Steve gave me an idea, so there…
Patricia. have fun making up shocking stuff. 😉
TAt is similar to my experience. Two guys with pants down round their butts tried to rob the gas station while I was filling up my car. A cop pulled in and they started to run away. The one guy let lose of his overly large pants and ended up on the ground when he tripped over the pants when they fell down. The other guys pants came down a few steps later. The cop was laughing while handcuffing them. His words to the would be robbers. “Thanks for making my job to easy today, boys.”
Foiled by their wardrobe. Thanks for that chuckle, Barbara!