damage to chargers<\/a>.<\/p>\nInspector Shaun Lingard said two men, aged 37 and 39, were arrested after a search of a Naenae property found six chargers, several charger cables and equipment to break the devices down into parts for selling on.<\/p>\n
He said a review of CCTV camera footage compiled by Hutt City Council was used to link the men to the offending.<\/p>\n
“Police have been investigating these thefts at pace and working to build a picture of the offending. We expect these arrests will make a significant impact in terms of the offending we have been seeing in the Hutt Valley, and this should send a message to anyone else thinking EV chargers are an easy target,” Lingard said.<\/p>\n
He said the chargers hit were a mixture of council owned infrastructure and chargers owned by private companies intended for public use.<\/p>\n
![\"Wires](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLFFT_IMG_2653_jpeg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nWires on a Meridian high capacity EV chargers pulled off was reported to police.
\nPhoto: Michael Taylor\n<\/p>\n
“The thefts were hugely frustrating for the owners, as well as for those members of the public trying to utilise these services,” Lingard said.<\/p>\n
This week Meridian principal product manager Tim Calder told RNZ nearly half of the provider’s 20 locations in the Wellington region had been hit by vandalism.<\/p>\n
He said the company was reviewing CCTV footage and working alongside authorities to get to the bottom of the damage while the chargers were being repaired.<\/p>\n
“We’re doing everything we can to get these sites back up and running,” Calder said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in the capital’s southern suburbs, EV owner Tessa – who did not want her full name used – said she was being forced to travel 20 minutes from her home in Island Bay to find the nearest non-damaged charger.<\/p>\n
Tessa said the three chargers nearest to her home – in Island Bay, Newtown, and Berhampore – had all been damaged and she was worried the vandalism could put people off getting an EV.<\/p>\n
“Who’s to say this isn’t going to happen again? You know, these companies are going to spend a huge amount of money replacing them,” she said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A review of CCTV camera footage compiled by Hutt City Council was used to link the men to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-474261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}