⚡️Oil companies buying charging startups

Happy Monday. This is Electric Avenue, the newsletter that gets EV enthusiasts more pumped than the live stream of a Tesla launch event. $TSLA to the moon, baby 🌕

Here's what we have for you today:

• SPAC update & Funding news 📈

• Big Oil on shopping tour 🛒

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

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SPAC update & Funding news 📈

Did you read our review of the EV & Charging SPAC performance in 2022? Spoiler alert: It`s not pretty.

One of those EV companies that went public via SPAC was Arrival. The company made headlines with a fully electric delivery van. Back in 2020, it got a 10,000 vehicle order + investment from UPS. But now Arrival is not doing so well anymore. Its start of production was pushed back to 2024 and it requires additional investment to achieve this goal. To reduce its cash burn the company just laid of ~50% of its workforce. 

Charger manufacturer ABB e-mobility on the other hand is growing strong and just took on 326M Euro in outside investment from companies such as Porsche SE. ABB is planning to take its e-mobility division public via IPO soon; this will be the final investment round before its listing.

If you want to discover more E-Mobility companies that got funding, check out our recently started EV&Charging funding database. Do you know any E-mobility companies that got funding recently?

Send us a link to [email protected]!

Big Oil on shopping tour 🛒

Three weeks ago, Shell announced the acquisition of charging network Volta in an all-cash deal valued at ~$169M. That valuation is down ~85% since Volta´s public listing via a SPAC in 2021. Volta operates charge points with embedded large screens on which advertisements are displayed. Through these screen Volta´s advertisers and retail site hosts can target bypassing shoppers.

Let´s zoom out and have a look at Big Oils' investments and acquisitions in EV charging companies over the last few years:

Shell and BP have built the broadest portfolio of acquisitions along the electric vehicle charging value chain. Followed by Total which started to become active in EV charging acquisitions in 2018 with the acquisition of G2 Mobility.

And what do Shell, BP, and Total have in common with no other oil company in the TOP10? They`re all based in Europe, where e-mobility has huge political support. Besides those three, the remaining Top 10 big oil companies have not taken an active role in EV charging: Big Oil investments in EV Charging Companies

Our thoughts on Oil companies in EV charging:

• Oil companies are urged by various stakeholders to transition to renewable energies. From employees to shareholders to customers and politicians - especially in Europe.

• EV charging infrastructure and services are a field where these companies can accelerate growth through strategic acquisitions with cash from their traditionally highly profitable oil business.

• Existing gas station refueling sites can be competitive advantages in building public charging infrastructure because they are often in strategic corridor locations.

• However, public charging is forecasted to account for only 10-25% of EV charging based on the higher availability of private charging infrastructure and increasing vehicle battery capacity.

• To service electric fleets (like they did with fuel cards), Oil companies must advance their offering in the field of depot, workplace and home charging too. One example is BP´s recent partnership with Hertz.

• They`re not alone in shopping around for EV charging investments - energy utilities like France's EDF and Norway's Statkraft are equally active in shopping for EV charging companies in the EU - more on that in another edition.

Read the full report on Big Oil investments in EV Charging Companies.

Friendly reminder: We recently created the Electric Avenue Glossary. This is a living post where we'll add new acronyms anytime we define or use them.

3 Links 🔗

• Chargers for Mexico: BMW is partnering with charging network Evergo to deploy more than 4,000 public charging stations in the next 5 years. It is unclear which percentage of the $200M investment is provided by BMW vs Evergo, but BMW will not have any ownership in Evergo. We recently reported on Auto makers that specifically choose to own shares in charging networks.

• E-routing by Google?: With ~70-80% market share, Google Maps is the big boy among mobile navigation apps. It has features for EV owners, such as searching fast charging stations and filtering by connector types. BUT, it´s been missing a full e-routing feature which auto-adds charging stops to a route based on your EV´s battery level and energy consumption. Only the version of Google Maps that is embedded in vehicles like the Polestar 2 and the GMC Hummer EV has this functionality. Owners of other EVs have relied on apps like ABRP, Pump and Chargetrip for this purpose. But Google could soon release the functionality for its mobile app too.

• Formula E + Atieva: Ever heard of Atieva? That’s the name of a rather obscure battery company founded in 2007. Until 2016 that is - when it re-branded to Lucid Motors and unveiled it’s first electric vehicle, the Air. Lucid just announced that it is providing the front drive unit to all vehicles in “a leading electric race series” (read: Formula E). And if you look really closely, you still see the Atieva logo being used on there :)

Meme of the Week

A Reader´s review

Selected ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Freakin´ awesome and wrote:

"Felt insightful, I shared screenshots or links of each section"

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.