EVs will make up less than 10% of the U.S. market by 2025. US still will need a lot of EV charging stations. Biden's plan outlines 500,000 new EV plugs across the U.S by the end of this decade. With Biden's EV push, it is not surprising that investors have a very rosy expectation about EV charging business. As a result, a flourish of EV charging companies were brought to the market through SPAC mergers.
I don't know what is the profit margin for EV charging stations, but one operating company Blink claimed to operate over 20,000 charging stations around the country, but that translated into less than $5 million in revenue over the past year. It currently has a market cap over 2 Billion dollars. Another EV charging company is offering Level 2 charging for free, and make their money from ads posted at their charge station.
Oil companies have a lot of experience in operating gas stations, so they have a good understanding of the kind of profit margins you can get from "charging" stations. For many gas stations, 75 percent of their profits comes from the sale of other products, such as food, medicine and accessories. I don't expect the stand-alone EV charge stations can have a high profit margin.
Oil companies and EV charging: Oil companies have started their carbon zero move. However, they are waiting in the wings milking their gas station infrastructure, until there are sufficient demand. Oil companies are not just sitting there waiting. Most of the European Oil companies have started their transition because Europe have a lot more EVs on the road today (Norway has more than 50%). In the US, Chevron has tried to convert a few gas stations in California to have EV charging stations, most likely to gain some experience and to gather market and profit margin data. Exxon is "considering", but has not moved yet.
Submitted February 10, 2021 at 08:49PM by get_reddit_1 https://ift.tt/2MM7hpO
