⚡ Can fast charging networks make money?

Happy Monday. This is Electric Avenue - the EV newsletter that leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy. Like a cozy cup of hot chocolate at an alpine hut where this post was co-authored from ☕.

Think of us as the NESQUIK bunny of e-mobility🐰.

Here's what we have for you today:

• Startup Funding News 📈

• Can charging networks make money? 💲

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

Let's get into it!

Startup Funding News 📈

It's Money Monday 💲  - and this week we've had $10M+ raised by EV startups. Here's who secured the bag 💰 :

• Chargetrip raised a $10M Series A to bring its range prediction and EV routing technology to North America and prepare commercial fleets for electrification.

• Switch EV secured an undisclosed investment from Plug and Play Tech Center. The company offers an embedded charger operating system (Josev) as well as a cloud-based charger management platform (Switch platform). Both Josev and the Switch platform support OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO15118-20 standards "out-of-the-box" to enable advanced use cases like V2G.

Take-away: EV startups remain successful in securing funding despite the challenging macro environment (bank crisis, tech layoffs).

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]!

Can charging networks make money? 💲

Hot off the press 🔥: The earnings reports of two major fast-charging operators were released last week - Fastned (🇪🇺) and EVgo (🇺🇸). Both companies are publicly listed and are leading owners & operators of public DC fast charging networks in their respective markets. A side by side comparison:

• 2022 Earnings Reports: Fastned (FAF) // EVgo (EVGO)

• Revenue related to charging 📈: 36M € (+191% YoY growth) // 23.2M $ (+146%)

• Operational EBITDA 💰: 8.1M € (244%) // - 80M € (56%)

• Net Profit / Loss 📉: -22.2M € // -106M $

• Charging sessions 🔋: 2.32M (114%) // n.a.

• Energy sold ⚡️: 51.9 GWh (148%) // 44.6 GWh (69%)

• DC fast chargers operated 🔌: 1,237 (62%) // 2,800 (47%)

• Sites 📍: 244 (30%) // 900

• Active Customers 🙎‍♀️🙍‍♂️: 218k (96%) // 553k (63%)

Key Takeaways:

• Fastned: Like other EU fast charging players, Fastned was challenged by high volatility in the EU's energy market last year - which we covered back in October. Fastned was able to maintain a stable gross profit per kWh by increasing prices throughout 2022. This led to an overall higher growth of charging revenues (+191%) compared to the YoY increase of charging sessions (+114%) and sold energy (+148%).

• EVGo: Main growth driver of EVGo's revenue was related to the "EVGo eXtend" program which saw an increase from $ 0,789M to $ 18.4M in 2022. Within the white-label program, EVgo will be responsible for the installation and operation of charging stations while the assets and the corresponding Profits/Losses are owned by partners. This approach lets EVGo expand its public charging network in a capital-light approach and secure locations by partners through long-term agreements. The first major partner is Pilot and Flying J (gas station), whose locations will be equipped with 2,000 fast-charging stalls (Link). The partnership is additionally backed by General Motors, which is contributing its "Ultium 360" charging service branding to the stations. It remains unclear what proportion of the $18.4M in eXtend revenue is attributable to one-time sales (hardware, installation, project mgmt) vs. recurring payments (O&M subscription fees).

• Comparison: We see the EU public fast-charging market 2-4 years ahead of the USA in terms of utilization and profitability. This is reflected in the numbers of these two players as we can clearly see a higher utilization and throughput at Fastned compared to EVGo:

• Fastned is selling ~0.21 GWh of energy per site vs. EVgo's ~0.05 GWh/site.

• On a per-charger-level, Fastned is selling ~0.042 GWh vs. EVgo's 0.016 GWh/charger.

• On that energy, Fastned achieved a ~22% operational EBITDA margin while EVGo is still incurring losses.

We will keep an eye on how these numbers develop. We're curious to see how increasing public funding in the US (e.g. the US' NEVI program) will impact EVGo's business in the next years.

3 Links 🔗

• GM kills Carplay 💀 : Data is the new oil. General Motors certainly seems to agree with that statement. The company just made the controversial decision to sunset support for Apple Carplay and Android Auto phone projection features in its upcoming electric vehicles. A stated reason is that it would allow GM to capture more data on how its customers use GM's infotainment systems. The GM infotainment system in these vehicles will still offer Google Maps-based navigation + Google Assistant, but running those services locally instead of on a customer's phone can enable tighter integration with features like GM's driver assistance system Supercruise.

• Rivian coming to 🇪🇺 ?: Just last fall Rivian abandoned plans for its European Van manufacturing joint venture with Mercedes. Now the company's career page hints at a potential Rivian Service Center to be established in Berlin, Germany. A quick LinkedIn search also reveals that Rivian currently employs ~70 people located in Germany and the Netherlands. This is in addition to the company's UK engineering office which counts ~150 people and its recently established Software engineering hub in Serbia which seems to employ ~30 people as of today. Could we see Rivian sales to commercial customers in Europe soon?

• Lucid lays off: 18% or about 1300 employees. That's how many team members Lucid Motors is laying off this week out of its ~7000 global employee base. The company's CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson cited “evolving business needs and productivity improvements." as the reasoning in an email sent to workers. (Link)

+ Bonus link: For our readers living in California 🌴, please take a few minutes to fill out this CARB charging payments survey. It will help inform the California government's actions in regards to public charging funding, payment methods and minimum technical requirements for charging networks.

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 the companies discussed.