Driver’s cheeky revenge on council with electric car lands him with £280 fine
A MAN has been slapped with a fine after cheekily using a local council power box to charge his electric car.
The 78-year-old man from Mount Barker, Western Australia, was spotted using the power box to top up his e-vehicle on Sunday.
CCTV footage captured the Aussie with his car hooked up to the box that was sticking out of a bush.
Cops eventually charged the old man with stealing the electricity and fined him a hefty £280.
In Western Australia it is illegal to charge an electric car anywhere in public, except for approved service points.
Mount Barker police took to Twitter on Tuesday to publicly shame the cheeky OAP.
They said: “To clarify. If you want to recharge your e-vehicle, DON’T steal the electricity to do so.
“Police will prosecute in EVERY instance. This recharge cost the vehicle owner a $500 (£280) fine, for stealing from the Shire. Be better.”
There are reportedly a number of charging stations in and around Mount Barker, according to the Electric Vehicle Council’s Australian EV Charger Map.
The Twitter post shared by Mount Barker police was then reposted by the main Western Australia Police Force Facebook which racked up several different opinions.
Some took the sneaky old man’s side and said the incident showed why electric vehicles were not practical in regional areas, while others said it proved more charging stations needed to be installed.
This follows the story of a man who flew home from his holiday to find his electric car at the airport with no battery.
The unfortunate driver claimed that the 45-minute journey from Gatwick airport to his home in Maidstone, Kent, turned into a ghastly seven-hour trip.
One mum also vented on TikTok about how electric vehicles were the “worst invention in the world” after spending an hour looking for a charging point.
Another report mentioned how many drivers are ditching their electric cars to return to petrol vehicles due to the lack of charging stations.
It was revealed in January that just 806 new chargers were being installed in the UK, placing the country’s electric car infrastructure at ‘crisis point’.
This figure needs to almost quadruple to 3,130 installations a month to meet the Government’s target of having 300,00 devices nationwide by 2030 – the date when the UK will ban new petrol and diesel cars.
There were only 37,055 charging points in the UK as of January this year.