fbpx

7 Electric Vehicle Charging Companies

ZSW, a leading European energy research institute, puts the number of electric cars on the road at 370,000 as of 2014. In the U.S. alone, there are 290,000 electric cars on the road which is a +69% increase from the year prior. While there are many ways to play the growth of electric vehicles, one way is to take a “picks and shovels” approach and invest in electric vehicle charging stations.

Historically, this theme hasn’t fared well. Founded in 2007, Better Place was a venture-capital backed company that burnt through $850 million trying to change the world with their ubiquitous electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The company eventually went bankrupt and liquidated their assets for just $450,000. ECOtality was another electric vehicle charging company that was backed by a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. They went bankrupt in 2013. Perhaps there is no viable business model for electric vehicle charging companies or perhaps electric vehicle usage wasn’t mature enough for first movers. In any case, here’s a look at 7 companies that remain in the electric vehicle charging space.

Car Charging Group (OTCMKTS:CCGI)

Click for company websiteThis over-the-counter company acquired 4 of their competitors including ECOtality’s network of charging stations shortly after they went bankrupt. The problem is that this network doesn’t appear to be making much money. In looking at their financials, it appears that each station generates on average $27.51 per month or less than a dollar a day. They recently raised institutional funding, strengthened senior leadership, and they have an established relationship with Nissan. They now need to ramp up their revenues and stimulate their share price which is down -57% over the past year and sitting near 52-week lows.

Envision Solar (OTCMKTS:EVSI)

This OTC company wants to use solar in combination with an electric vehicle charging station. In addition to their “solar tree” product, in 2013 they launched the world’s first fully autonomous renewable car charger which is fully mobile. As of their last 10-Q filing, they had $78,467 of cash on hand. Revenues for the first half of 2015 were $700,000 with losses of $1 million. During the three months ended June 30, 2015, they successfully delivered 11 EV ARC™ charging units of which 3 were delivered under a 12-month lease agreement. The latest filing also has some of the usual peculiarities we see with OTC stocks. The Company apparently leases a pickup truck from the CEO for $1,850 a month plus mileage.

AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV)

Click for company websiteWe wrote about AeroVironment before and noted that electric vehicle charging solutions only account for 15% of their 2015 sales, a proportion that has been slowly declining over time. With their high-margin and high-growth drone business showing strong revenue growth, it remains to be seen if they have the ability or desire to turn around this declining business line.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Click for company websiteWhile not a pure-play by any means, we can’t fail to mention Tesla which provides their drivers with a nationwide network of “supercharger” stations free of charge.

Tesla Charging Stations

This means that the more market share Tesla captures with their vehicles, the more market share they capture for their exclusive electric charging solutions. If we assume 50,000 Teslas on the road in the U.S., then there are still 82% of electric vehicles that need to be charged somewhere. There’s always the chance that the Tesla “supercharger” stations could be enabled to support other electric vehicles but this seems unlikely. You wouldn’t want a Tesla owner to pull up to a fully occupied station and see non-Tesla electric vehicles which defeats the purpose of the “free of charge” value proposition.

SemaConnect

Click for company websiteFounded in 2008, SemaConnect has taken in $26 million in funding so far with their latest Series C round completed in July of this year. The Company has used this funding to deploy thousands of charging stations across the nation:

SemaConnect Location Map

Their focus is on the commercial and residential property market. In 2011, ChargePro saw their single largest order to date for 1,500 charging stations. Two ChargePro charging stations can be leased for a 5-year period at a cost of $258 per month for both.

PlugShare

Click for company websiteWhile not a company that actually provides infrastructure, PlugShare wants to aggregate all the data for the electric vehicle charging infrastructure that is deployed across all providers. For those who want to know where all these chargers are located, PlugShare provides an app which lets you know the location of over 32,000 charging stations in the U.S. and Canada.

ChargePoint

Click for company websiteChargePoint has taken in $115 million so far from 15 venture capital firms including names like BMW, Siemens, Braemar Energy Ventures, Toyota, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. ChargePoint is the world’s largest and most open electric vehicle charging network with over 23,400 locations.

ChargePoint Charging Station locations

Every 7 seconds, a driver connects to a ChargePoint station. Interestingly enough, the provider of the charging station dictates the price to be charged and ChargePoint claims that many of their charging stations are free to use. They offer a variety of charging solutions as seen below:

Chargepoint Solutions

If we had to pick one of these 5 companies as the most serious contender going forward for a pure-play on electric vehicle charging, we’d pick ChargePoint based on their strong backing, the large number of charging stations they have in operation, and their “free to use” angle. Since ChargePoint is still private, retail investors will have to wait until an IPO takes place to participate.

Update 11/29/2018: ChargePoint has raised $240 million in Series H funding, including from American Electric Power, to serve an anticipated flood of electric vehicles that will all need charge points. This brings the company’s total funding to $532.2 million to date.  

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

  1. Hello,

    I would like to introduce myself to you and tell you about some exciting green energy project ideas that I will be starting at California State University, Los Angeles. My name is Gilbert Lopez (Gil). I am currently a full-time student at California State University, Los Angeles working towards my Technology / Engineering Bachelor of Science degree. I plan to pursue a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering in the future.

    My educational background includes an Associates Degree in Business Management, Associates Degree in Liberal Arts, a Certification in Logistics and an A+ Electronics Certification. I am able to quickly absorb and research any given idea, due to inborn curiosity and familiarity with a wide variety of fields in technology. I have a strong work ethic and mechanical ability. My passion is revitalizing vintage, forgotten classics items like cars, and making them useful with modern technology. I currently restore classic cars from the 60’s, and my dream is to build a classic electric solar car.

    In the past year, I have become very interested in exploring electric motors, batteries, and green technology, and in learning how these technologies impact our carbon footprints for future generations. I am also building electric golf carts using fiberglass replica bodies of vintage muscle cars of the 50’s and 60’s. I hope to understand how current, voltage, electricity and batteries operate and may be best controlled to power electric vehicles.

    These curiosities led me to explore an exhilarating opportunity right on my campus, to convert a 1974 Porsche 914 generously donated by a CSULA student for use as a student learning project. I would like to convert it into a solar/electric classic car – and in so doing learn all about the electrical storage, control and drive and regenerative braking systems that comprise state-of-the-art electric vehicles – and share this knowledge with my fellow students. So many of my friends and fellow students have expressed interest in this car! After numerous attempts to get the project off the ground by previous student teams, I have finally succeeded. I am currently learning and putting into practice all of the safety protocols involved in working with electric vehicles, and my goal is to redesign the Porsche to include some solar panels and a high-efficiency electric motor.

    I have also been granted an unfurnished lab space in Professor Sam Landsberger’s Laboratory for Rehabilitation and Sustainable Engineering. Professor Landsberger is a full professor of mechanical engineering with doctoral and masters degrees from MIT, and has agreed to supervise all of our work on the electric vehicles. I would like to redesign this lab space using your products. The theme of the space will be 50’s – 60’s style with a go-green, solar technology ambience.

    This opportunity comes with its share of cost that presents a challenge for a full-time student; I would like to request your support as a sponsor for this green technology project. We are a building a electric research center to promote education on electric cars and batteries. I attend many shows in southern California and we are a bright talented team.

    We have a 1974 Porsche Dc and 1972, and 1974 super beetle AC system with 34 lithium ion cells .

    Porsche system is running a 11 inch warp DC motor and zilla controllers with 168 volts of dead agm optima batteries.

    Beetle has very weak lithium ion cells. Running Ac 50 I am currently in the process of connecting a j 1772 port to the campus charge station. Plus BMS, display screen, thunderstruck components.

    I am currently trying to connect to the J1775 on the campus charge port. We like to use your charger to install in our classic bug. We are in desperate need of quality wall charger since. Possibility of helping us students with a donation of your wall charger or give us a student discount?

    We would be happy to promote our company on our Beetle and Porsche and the many electric car show we attend yearly.

    Thank you

    Gil Lopez

    Infinite Eagles

    President

    Student coordinator

  2. Hi Gil,

    Your letter is most interesting, but do you realize that you posted it on a website that is dedicated to researching new technologies as investments? Perhaps you thought you were posting directly to a company that is in the business of producing EV technology?

    Either way, good luck with your research projects, they sound like the wave of the future.

    1. Cheers for that Ted! We missed this comment.

      Gil, best to reach out to the companies directly. Best of luck with your very cool projects!