⚡ $87M+ raised by e-mobility startups, Tesla gets jailbreak

Happy Monday. This is Electric Avenue. The only e-Mobility newsletter that’s sweet, tart and refreshing like a bottle of Apfelschorle 🍎 🧃.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• EV startup funding news 📈

• 1 Video

• NIO goes bi-directional

• 4 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

As always, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do get in touch. Simply reply to this email or leave a comment on the web. Let's get into it!

EV Startup Funding News 📈

It's Money Monday 🤑  - this month we've seen $87M+ raised by EV Charging startups. Here's who secured the bag 💰:

• Rocsys raised a $36M Series A for its autonomous charging solutation which includes a robotic arm that can plug in a charging connector.

• ev.energy secured a $33M funding round led by National Grid Partners, the venture arm of U.K. and U.S. utility giant National Grid. The investors also included InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover, and Wex Venture Capital, the investment arm of commerce and fleet management provider Wex.

• Ampcontrol.io raised a $10 Million Series A Investment led by the Westly Group with participation from existing investors AngelPad and Lorimer Ventures. This funding supports Ampcontrol's AI-powered load-management software that helps fleet operators.

• Chargetrip had a second closing of its Series A funding round and also added Wex Venture Capital to it’s cap table. Chargetrip provides API-based e-routing solutions for fleet operators and other customers.

• Voltpost completed a $3.6M Seed funding round to bring its curbside, lamppost-integrated charging station to market.

• Chargecloud updated its shareholder structure. Existing joint venture partners RheinEnergie (German utility) and Mennekes (connector & cable manufacturer) purchase the remaining shares from 3rd partner Powercloud. Chargecloud offers a cloud-based Charging Station Management System as a white-label product to other charging networks.

• Flipturn raised a $4.5M Seed round led by Accel. The company offers a unified control center for EV fleet and charger operations.

To see all E-Mobility companies that raised money in the last months, check out our EV&Charging funding database.

Do you know any E-mobility companies that raised recently? -> Send us a link to [email protected]!

1 Video 🎥

If you like to get nerdy... And we mean real nerdy... Like, down to the level of charger embedded software and power cabinet sealing technologies nerdy... Then you should definitely check out this ~2hr video tour of the Chargepoint HQ. It includes a complete overview of their product portfolio and insights into their development and testing process.

NIO goes bi-directional

Chinese EV startup NIO held its 2023 Power Day event.

The main news was the announcement of a bi-directional DC charging station which NIO will use for V2G projects in China. The unit has a power rating of 20kW.

NIO also provided updates on the buildout of its fast charging and battery swap station network in China. Let’s compare these to the last update from December (we reported).

Take-away: NIO is not slowing down its infrastructure investments in its home market. Battery swapping continues to rise in popularity among NIO users with high energy usage, despite widespread alternatives in home charging and public DC fast chargers.

4 Links 🔗

• Jailbreak to unlock Tesla’s software features 👨‍💻: Berlin-based students managed to jailbreak a Tesla and unlock the heat-seating feature. Ultimately, their “Tesla jailbreak” could be extended to unlock Tesla’s full self-driving update, which would require more reverse engineering efforts.

• Fisker on attack mode🚗: After delivering its first flagship model, the Fisker Ocean, the company announced three new models at its “Production Vision Day” - Alaska (SUV starting at $45k), Ronin (Sportscar starting at $385k) and PEAR (small SUV starting at $30k). 

• VW’s price cuts in China 🤑: During the last months, virtually all automakers needed to cut prices in China to stimulate demand within a competitive market. Among them was VW’s JV with SAIC, which offered the VW ID.3 for an all-time low price of $17,5k resulting in 10k orders in the last month. It remains open if the JV can keep prices and margins low or needs to increase prices and risk losing sales.

Meme of the Week 🤡

That's a wrap for this week! Let us know how you feel:

Reader Review of the Week

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. The Electric Avenue team may hold investments in or may otherwise be affiliated with the companies discussed.