Why All EV Charging Companies Are Losing Money

In this video we look at the business of electric vehicle charging stations. While this should seem like a growth market due to the increased adoption of electric vehicles, all publicly traded EV charging companies are currently losing money. Join us as we delve into the EV charging landscape and try to figure out why this is the case.



#Wallstreetmillennial #electricvehicle #evcharging

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Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
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0:00 - 1:14 Intro
1:15 - 5:42 Business Model
5:43 Gas Station Comparison

[PXAbstraction]

"...by merging with SPACs...all disasters." Yep, seems on point.

[vicsmith]

When I buy gas, I insert a credit card. Why is it EV charge companies FORCE me to load an app, load a credit card, and in many cases transfer money to create a “balance”. If gasoline sellers used the EV charge business model there would be a nationwide protest.

[JoelReid]

The largest issue is that people have no incentive to spend 30 wasted minutes charging their car, they would rather charge it while doing something useful. Unless you link the charging in with something practical, people would rather charge at home, or work.

[BCNeil]

Where I live, they charge 9 times more for electricity, than it cost at your home. Still losing money.

[tayzonday]

I don’t understand how a charging station only lasts three-to-seven years. What wears out?

[michaellisi]

I rented an electric car recently. Charging was a pain especially while driving long distance. I wouldn’t rent another fully EV car. Even with the fast chargers it’s a major inconvenience.

[ab-tffl]

Another factor not mentioned in this video is uneven demand across various times of day and seasons. In a major tourist destination, like the grand canyon, you need massive amounts of chargers to handle the peak season loads, that would see very little revenue coming in during the off season.

[Paul-lihq]

Don't you think that if it wasn't for all of the subsidies, grants and financial incentives, this whole EV thing would simply NEVER have got off the ground?

[leonidfro]

Those charging companies are confused about what business they are in. They think they are in hi-tech business, where they develop apps, platforms or other forms of “technology”. They are mistaken. They are in commodities business. Nobody care about their shitty apps or subscriptions. But maintaining those is very costly.
Contrary to widespread belief, gas pumps are cheaper than chargers. Also, both need servicing.

[samsonsoturian]

Correction: Many gas stations operate without staff present while the convenience store is closed at night.

[bernardlynch]

One key factor could be the substantial upfront investment required to build charging infrastructure.

[GerbenWulff]

The situation is similar in Europe.
One other problem is the competition by non-specialized companies that offer charging as a service and don't need to profit from it. They have low cost, because they can hook up the charger to their existing grid connection (using smart power management so it doesn't require upgrading the grid connection), where a charging company needs to pay every month for a grid connection that is only used for charging vehicles. It is even better if they combine it with solar. E.g. a shopping mall, or office building can offer significant speeds at relatively low cost. If you have a parking lot, you can dump excess grid capacity into the type 2 chargers when demand for fast charging is low. This allows you to optimize the use of your grid connection capacity from morning rush hour, all day until evening rush hour.

[BSJinx]

0:58 "Merging with a SPAC/ SPACs" should get an ominous organ chord at this point.

[alkaholic]

Diesel/petrol: Taxed to hell by the governments and still manage to be profitable.

Electric: Not YET taxed by the government (if they took off that would definitely change), currently getting government subsidies, and they STILL can't make it profitable 😂

[pearlofpandemonium]

I'm only about halfway through the video so far, but I feel like the obvious solution here is for gas stations to just add in their own charging stations, replacing or adding to their gas pump stalls. I have no idea why these charging companies thought that people would rather charge up in the back of a parking lot, instead of at a convenience store where they can get food, snacks, drinks, etc and use the bathroom.

[kcgunesq]

Interesting issue I hadn't considered before. A gas station company has a lot of worker bees making minimum wage and small number of professionals and executives. An EV charging company likely has close to zero minimum wage employees and loads of professional and high-wage tradespeople, plus the executives.

[johnneill]

This is quite a good video, i was speaking to someone who is in the fuel station business (Petrol Station or 'Servo' in Australian speak). Number of big issues with EV Chargers is why you don't see big fuel stations putting in EV charging spots.

1. The EV super chargers themselves are hugely expensive to install and maintain
2. The simple reality is that an EV Charger makes a pittance of revenue compared to a fuel pump, there's a limit in how many vehicles they can service in a day
3. Electricity, which is becoming ever more expensive, means that it will soon cost more to 'fill up' your EV than it would a pickup truck with Petrol
4. Space, these things can't be installed anywhere near tanks, refueling ports, anywhere that a tanker tuck will park, gas tanks and so forth for safety reasons (EV Fires), so most sites have limited options.

Add up these and other points and this is why in Australia you will rarely see any EV chargers at Fuel Stations. They simply don't make enough money to warrant the cost.

[hotshotsunnyz]

A single gas pump could service 12-15 (i.e., full tanks) cars effortlessly in 30 min, i.e., giving these cars a range of 400-500miles or more. A single charging station could service only one car in 30 minutes with questionable range (depending on the electricity demand). You see, how infrastructure problems arise for EVs.

[canwelook]

Here down under the government collects 44 cents a litre tax (Excise) on petrol and deisel. Plus 10% tax (GST) on the total fuel bill. This money goes into general revenue and ensures we can fund our roads.

A key reason BEVs are cheap to run is that they avoid these high taxes. They effectively leach off the rest of society by failing to contribute these significant amounts to general revenue including to keep of roads. It is ironic that their heavier weight means that they rip up the roads far quicker.

[tomusiaka]

I like the idea of gas stations adding fast chargers, like Shell or Circle K do. Currently they have 2 charging stalls vs 8 or so fueling stalls, but eventually they could expand further. This gives the same conveniences, including available bathrooms, snacks, warm food etc., increases revenue via sale of merchandise, and reduces per-charging stall costs to the gas station, e.g. potentially using already available space instead of renting space, if someone needs assistance, they can ask the person who already works at the gas station instead of the company having to hire a ton of customer service representatives to be available via the phone, and maybe workers who repair fuel pumps could potentially be trained to replace charger parts (as long as there are no electrical specific issues requiring specialization).