Earlier this year we were made aware of a case where a Singapore-registered BYD M3 electric van was spotted stealing electricity at an EV charger at the Shell station at Tangkak southbound R&R.
It looks like it’s still happening, as seen in this posting by MyEVOC Facebook group member Jared. The driver of this plug-in hybrid decided to park right next to the charging bay so the car could use the charging cable, without paying for the charging bay.
Shell Recharge is a paid service – you are supposed to use the ParkEasy app to pay for the barrier on the parking lot to be lowered so you can park at the charger to use it.
This particular bay has a 7 kW Type 2 AC charger and costs a minimum of RM6 with the first two hours of usage included, with additional hours priced at RM2.80 per hour.
Shell Recharge/ParkEasy chargers are particularly vulnerable to electricity theft because the chargers are always usable, with access to the bay supposed to be controlled by the barriers. But it looks like people will just find all kinds of ways to skip paying for something.
There is no mistake about it – this act is pure theft, plain and simple. Please do not do this, as bad behaviour from EV owners would deter private companies from investing in our EV charging infrastructure.
On top of that, bear in mind that ParkEasy has a reservation feature. Imagine if an EV owner intending to pay for charging made a reservation beforehand, but upon reaching the designated bay, is instead greeted by an electricity thief using the charger.
Shell is definitely aware of this – Shell Malaysia’s @pakcikshell Instagram account commented on the Tangkak case earlier this year as you can see in the embedded post below.
Other charging companies do not use barriers to control access, but instead their SOP is to only activate the charger when you pay with an app, which brings about an entirely different problem – people with completely no intention to charge tend to use the EV charging bay as a parking lot instead, which is also damaging as the act is depriving possible revenue generation for the company because no one intending to charge can park there and pay for the charger.
If you’re interested in trying out Shell Recharge / ParkEasy’s service, why not use our referral code R88W3N2T when you download the ParkEasy app and you’ll get some free credits to try it out. You might as well use the free credits instead of resorting to stealing!
EV just a mere speculation by Elon Musk that is not sustainable and hydrogen is the real solution
ok bro.. i better learn how to steal hydrodgen
>90% hydrogen energy produced by coal. Merely converted to hydrogen in the middle. End process is using hydrogen to EV again
Water can produce hydrogen too
i dont care how its made bro, as long as stealing it dont cost me a sen
sign me up bruv, let’s get in before the gettin’ gets good.
Thats ugly sinful. Bad imagine if others steal from u!!
Hydrogen car also EV lor.. only method of storage is different one use battery one use hydrogen
Are you sure?
Of course laa…stil dont know?
In general, EV can have their power from many source;
1. Plug-in electricity charging the battery
2. Hydrogen charging the car / battery
3. ICE transmission charging the battery
The term is confusing since too many technologies developed by vehicle manufacturers.
Until now, yes. Earlier this day I read an article that Toyota developed a hydrogen powered ICE and apparently BMW also did that a couple years back. However it doesn’t make sense to me, because ICEs have bad efficiency and everything needs to be heavier to be able to handle the hydrogen.
That’s not the issue being discussed. Do you wanna discuss about hyundai palisade as well while you’re here?
Elon aren’t genius,he just convert desert into tesla property after received 100billion goverment fund,battery itself expensive and toxic pollution,hydrogen inventor real genius solutions
Batteries gets to store 90-95% of the power from the grid.
Hydrogen takes 75% if using electrolysers. Hopefully in future it goes up to 90-95% with new technologies coming in. Then loses another 25% to turn hydrogen to electricity in the fuel cell before it goes to electric motor.
In toyota’s case, if hydrogen is used in Internsl combustion engine, then its efficiency is only sbout 50% with the balance lost in the form of heat.
Burning fuels in an ICE is about 4x less efficient. A fuel cell is also much less efficient than direct electricity. Hydrogen is often produced using electricity and needs refrigeration, so is even less efficient.
Only 2% of hydrogen used worldwide is produced using electric. 98% is made from natural gas by steam reduction.
The problem with HFCV is that the hydrogen pumping station is even less common and have issues with refueling multiple vehicles consecutively (it needs to re-pressurize after 4–5 vehicles). So at this point it’s kinda like the worst of ICE (can’t charge at home) and BEVs (can’t reliably charge at stations) combined. Will this improve in the future? I hope so.
Hydrogen is energy intensive to make and is inefficient in its use it’s also subject to leaks which are dangerous to the climate! For transport it really is a waste of time and money
Musk was just showing off a Hydrogen Tesla. You’ve likely never driven a hydrogen fueled car. They are woefully underpowered and American drivers will hate them in their current iteration.
The process of making hydrogen is even more not sustainable.
How do you think Hydrogen is made, ysing vast amounts of electricity, green hydrogen is the ultimate goal for reducing co2, but hydrogen fuel cell cars are less efficient than evs use far more electrivity to make the hydrogen then using itvun the fuel cell, than just charging a battery directly
Use hamster wheel better
Wow! This BMW owner runs out of money to charge his car after purchasing the car itself! Buying a BMW actually caused a huge dent to his pocket! But why want to get himself into such problem if in the first place he has no means to maintain his car? The dent is either on his pocket or his brain!
Poket kosong, gaya mesti ada!
X5…laolan…haaa
Yes, you can’t sell electricity in Malaysia but knowing how Malaysian culture works, don’t you think you need some form of access control to secure your chargers apart from the parking barrier?
Maybe some kind of encloser around the stalls and a wall separating each stall and make the cable a bit shorter so you have to either back into the stall or pull in. The walls and enclosure would prevent the cable from being used outside of thestall it is specifically for.
why not use both the barriers and the SOP to activate the charger TOGETHER? Should be easy enough to figure…
We are cheapskates. We not only come into mesia to pay a third of usual prices. We also steal your ron95, power, water and ladies too. Sorry ya
That bmw got msian road tax larr.
And many SG cars are driven by Malaysians who have PR in SG.
Sinkies dont even dare to break laws especially in Malaysia, since later their cars will kena smash by local rempits or even robbed. Only Malaysians themselves know where and how to break the laws also.. betul tak?
Yeah right, sinkies act like white European but threw garbage from inside the car like typical Malaysian villager
Typical Singaporean kiasuness is showing here. First pumping RON95 petrol, now stealing electric.
Did your brain take a holiday?
People in every country do this, lol. Neanderthals.
We are always harder on people in our cou try but true people all around do this in NZ too
“Other charging companies do not use barriers to control access, but instead their SOP is to only activate the charger when you pay with an app,”
How about a combination of both? Barriers and charger are released by an app?
That would be best idea. Pay which moves a motor into place to complete the circuit while also moving the bar down.
Lots of wirless devices do this they use a motor even electric grids.
They could even use a sensor on the ceiling pointed down and detect a car, if no car the beam bounces back to the ceiling of another sensor.
I do know Porsch is creating something else
Splitting oxygen and green hydrogen, then combining CO2 with the green hydrogen to produce synthetic methanol
What the duck… EV so facuking expensive. I rather use petrol car. I might steal if this ev charging cost so expensive. End of the story!
This is the reality of the state of you global economy. The majority of the population cannot afford the time and money it takes to own an EV.
Um..did they not think of combining both barrier and app feature?
1. Pay fee first to enable parking lot (drop barrier) and enable charger
2. If charger detects not in use after barrier is put down, fine rm100 through the app.
Big brain
Imagine being cheap on charging when you have the money to buy an ev in Malaysia. Real bruh moment.
Why not make “barrier app charger” communicate each other. App for booking, barrier goes down, charger activates. Timer expired, app sound alarm, charger stop, if car not move out, keep on charging customers credit card until move out from lot.
It still takes too long to charge s battery powered cars. Charging the cars st home is not good as TNB domestic tarifs increases if you use more power.
That behaviour clearly shows how some of the EV/PHEV owners made their money.
Current type of batteries for EV is inefficient and time consuming. I dream of the day when EV technology evolved into quick changable batteries. That means when battery is low, take it to a shop to exchange and pay for a fully charged one. The spent battery will be taken by the shop and charged for another customer later. Batteries are standardized for a range of vehicles of various make, with only a few categories according to capacity. Much like how we change the small batteries of conventional cars
Batteries are the most expensive part of an EV. Do you want to have your brand new battery exchanged with a (for example) 8 year old one?
Do you know how many diff size batteries are used in current ICEV cars?
Or that the traction battery weighs a couple thousand pounds?
You don’t even swap batteries in a cell phone?
Back to the article…..if they are easy to swap they’d be super ez to steal.
singaporeans caught breaking the law should be jailed in Malaysia. then they will start to think twice before behaving like a rascal.
And what should we do to the Malaysians who break the law in Malaysia? Accept a bribe or offer a discount for not paying a fine? HAHAHA
charge EV still need to burn coal and fuel
Why can’t create multifunction to enable parking bay AND charging at 1 request? Haiyohh
People who buy EV suppose to have brain right? Why this idiots looks like no brain one?
> There is no mistake about it – this act is pure theft, plain and simple.
Nop, the system is stupid. Can be bypassed this way. Users are simply demonstrating to Shell their system is not secure.
The electricity should not be flowing unless proper payment card is inserted. Plain and simple.
if the owner of a house forgets to lock the door, can you simply waltz in and steal everything inside and claim its just “demonstrating the door is not secure”?
go and think. ill be waiting for your answer.
A company isn’t a house moron, you don’t have thousands of people rotating through it daily. Great fallacy tho! I love when people try to equate stealing from a company to personal theft, really shows how indoctrinated you are into capitalism.
Sounds like a programming issue. Couldn’t they just update the programming to only make the chargers active when the barriers are down.
May be add some connection between the barrier & charging station power supply. When the barrier is down, the charging station only will have current. Will this solve the problem?
I mean, nobody considered that before putting those chargers over there? Rofl
Lol, they to lazy to make foolproof design to cater for kanasai cheap kiasu faker?
If the fine is consfication of the vehicle when caught, then nobody will dare do it… simple
This is dumb. Payment should be used to control the barrier AND the charger. Not one or the other. Not sure why this can’t be changed
It isn’t always theft. People charge their cars and just leave them all day, so others can’t use the charger. I did this a couple of times, but it was a machine at work and it was free.
Got a cheek to call it theft when these power companies are taking us all for mugs and ripping us off with the price of energy and still making massive profits
Are we supposed to feel sorry for BP & Shell…
can buy expensive EV, cannot pay for ev charging, typical mercedes bmw cheapskates
Whole thing is a scam. Electric car batteries are actually heavy, so it isn’t really saving as much fuel as claimed. Not if driving habits don’t change.
Just make that a no parking lot. Thieves park there, clamp tire and charge RM50 release fee.
Add RM500 penalty if it’s EV stealing power from the charger as well.
People are dicks.
People are dicks.
you’re a dick
I mean this goes to prove once again that lot of assholes are among us.
The engineer who design this is plain STUPID. Payment should be linked both to charger and the parking bay, and it can be activated (lower the paring barrier) only by your payment app if you make a reservation. We Malaysian, Singaporean & generally majority in the world is not really “Honest People”, if there is a obvious loop hole like this design, people will used it.
I hope this STUPID engineer accounted for overstay the parking. If not there is a real concern that if you overstay your parking period and that little barrier raised up underneath your car. Imagine what will happen if you totally forget and try to drive away, something underneath your car going to get ripped away.
All these EVs promo are konon about environment. But not all EVs (including EV-hydrogen) are green. It depend on the primary energy derived the electricity (and also hydrogen production). If the EVs power from grid in Malaysia then it is not 100% green. The energy mainly from fossil fuel and a lot of power/energy losses in the generation and distribution. Same to the hydrogen. If it is from fossil fuel then also not green. If huge energy uses to produce hydrogen, also means not entirely green.
By right all EVs should powered by renewable energy to make and claim it is sustainable. Same to production of hydrogen the primary energy should come from renewable energy.
Omg. .er wordt hier duchtig gepraat over waterstof.terwijl het hier eigenlijk over stroomdiefstal gaat…wat n rare kwibussen zijn Julie eigenlijk… Ik ben een ex VW ID4. Rijder.. batterij auto s trekken op niets….auto is weer weggedaan..ik rijd momenteel nu op waterstof.. gemaakt van 100% groene groene groene stroom….Jaja… Ik zaag hier toch ook niet over waterstof??? Schakel beter over… Je kan heel perfect. Met 6.5 kg waterstof 900 reële km rijden !!!! Voor 38 euro .( In de zomer).in de winter is dit ongeveer 650 km.. voor net geen 40 euro. In belgie….. Batterijen degraderen ! Ook als je deze niet gebruikt!! sowieso… em Kosten vreeeeselijk veel geld om te vervangen …
Waterstoftanks vervangen kost in België inclusief werkuren 2500 euro.. een batterij de allerkleinste voor een EV start sowieso al op 20.000 euro…in de tijd dat mijn tanks versleten zijn en dat is 25 jaar of 2.5 miljoen km . is een EV rijder al 3 tot 4 keer of meer.. moeten wisselen van batterij… De omvormer gaat 2 tot 3 miljoen km mee vooraleer er de 1 e %. Degradatie optreedt. Deze kan perfect 15 miljoen km mee..zonder probleem… Schaf dezewaterstof auto aan… En stop met electriciteit te laden. U ben duurder af. Zelfs al steel je stroom !!!!.
Fossil Fuels still rule!
Ok. Simple solution. Tie the space and the charger to each other. No car in space, keep power off for the charger. Add a camera so that if the car is unplugged while charging it scans the area and watches for possible theft.
1). Build a better system instead of begging people not to cheat, that’s stupid. People will always cheat if they can
2) Electric vehicles were blocked for years and years buy the oil industry and Elon was the one who was able to break through, so kudos to him for that
3) Hydrogen production will not be energy intensive for long now that we have cold fusion. Try reading some current science events. Within 10 years we will be able to mass produce hydrogen from sea water. Oil is over and EVs will finally make sense, using cold fusion produced power to charge batteries. The world is saved, celebrate!
If you don’t lock up the power behind a paywall, you’re asking for it to be stolen. Stupid move on Shells part.