DETROIT — Just before 2 a.m. on a chilly April night in Seattle, a Chevrolet Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on the edge of a shopping center parking lot.

Two men, one with a light strapped to his head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck. In under 2 1/2 minutes, they were gone.

The scene that night has become part of a troubling pattern across the country: Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on stealing the cables, which contain copper wiring. The price of copper is near a record high, which means criminals stand to collect rising sums of cash from selling the material.

Stolen cables often disable entire charging stations, forcing EV owners on the road to search for a working charger. For the owners, the predicament can be exasperating and stressful.

Broken chargers have emerged as the latest obstacle for U.S. automakers in their effort to convert more Americans to EVs despite widespread public anxiety about a scarcity of charging stations. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe EVs take too long to charge or don’t know of any charging stations nearby.

America’s major automakers have made heavy financial bets that buyers will shift away from combustion engines and embrace EVs as the world faces the worsening consequences of climate change. Accordingly, companies have poured billions into EVs.

Any such shift, of course, hinges on whether the companies can convince more would-be EV buyers that a charge will always be available when they travel. The rise in cable thefts isn’t likely to strengthen the automakers’ case.

Two years ago, according to Electrify America, which runs the nation’s second-largest network of direct-current fast chargers, a cable might be cut every six months at one of its 968 charging stations, with 4,400 plugs nationwide. Through May of this year, the figure reached 129 — four more than in all of 2023. At one Seattle station, cables were cut six times in the past year, said Anthony Lambkin, Electrify America’s vice president of operations.

“We’re enabling people to get to work, to take their kids to school, get to medical appointments,” Lambkin said. “So to have an entire station that’s offline is pretty impactful to our customers.”

Two other leading EV charging companies — Flo and EVgo — also have reported a rise in thefts. Charging stations in the Seattle area have been a frequent target. Sites in Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Pennsylvania have been hit too.

Stations run by Tesla, which operates the nation’s largest fast-charging network, have been struck in Seattle, Oakland and Houston. So far this year, Seattle police have reported seven cases of cable thefts from charging stations, matching the number for all of 2023. Thieves hit Tesla stations four times this year compared with just once last year, the Seattle police said.

“Vandalism of public charging infrastructure in the Seattle metro area has, unfortunately, been increasing in frequency,” EVgo reported.

The company said law enforcement officials are investigating the thefts while it tries to repair inoperable stations and considers a longer-term solution.