Some Electric Vehicle Owners 'Secretly' Charge in Parking Lots... Due to Infrastructure Shortage?

Secretly using emergency chargers on regular outlets
Shifting about 150,000 KRW monthly shared electricity costs
Criticism points to insufficient charging infrastructure as the issue

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung, Intern Reporter Song Hyundo] There is an ongoing controversy online as some electric vehicle (EV) owners are 'free charging' their cars using regular outlets instead of official charging stations. Opinions are mixed, with criticism labeling this as so-called 'stealing electricity' and others arguing that it is an unavoidable consequence of insufficient charging infrastructure.

Thieves secretly charging their vehicles at public parking lot standard outlets are on the rise / Source = Capture from Naver Cafe 'Electric Vehicle Club'

On the 16th, a post accusing a selfish EV owner secretly charging their vehicle at an apartment parking lot outlet was uploaded to an EV enthusiast cafe. The netizen who posted the message reported that a vehicle was charging using an emergency charger plugged into a regular outlet in a commercial building's shared underground parking lot. Another netizen questioned, “If it’s plugged into a regular electrical cord (not a designated EV charging outlet), isn’t that electricity theft?”

Vehicle charging at a public parking lot using an emergency charger / Source = Captured from an online community

This so-called stealing electricity behavior is known to be carried out using emergency chargers kept in the vehicles. Unlike mobile chargers that recognize the vehicle owner at EV-specific outlets and charge fees accordingly, emergency chargers used for urgent purposes can charge from regular outlets. One netizen said, “Because cases of electricity theft have become frequent, the management office has blocked all EV-specific outlets,” expressing that due to these stealing electricity cases, even regular EV owners are experiencing inconvenience in charging their vehicles.

According to the Ministry of Environment’s Zero-Emission Vehicle Integrated Website, slow chargers charge about 1,100 KRW for every 100 km of driving. Considering that the maximum driving range of the EV Ioniq 5 is 458 km, a full charge costs up to approximately 5,038 KRW. Therefore, if one vehicle steals electricity to charge every day, about 151,140 KRW in electricity fees would be added monthly to the operating costs of shared parking lots.

Not related to the article content / Photo by Yonhap News

Some view that part of the stealing electricity behavior is an unavoidable measure due to the lack of proper charging locations. As of June this year, there are about 298,633 EVs nationwide, but only 93,415 public charging stations. In response, the government has applied a revised enforcement decree starting this year, mandating that newly built apartments install EV chargers covering 5% of total parking spaces and existing apartments install chargers covering at least 2% of parking spaces.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.