First Fastned fast-charging stations broke-even in March

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

GRA

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
14,018
Location
East side of San Francisco Bay
Via GCC: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/04/20170406-fastned.html

The Netherlands-based Fastned, the company building a European network of fast charging stations, saw its first two stations break-even in March. This means that the operating expenses, such as the purchase of power, grid connection fees, licence costs, land lease, cleaning and maintenance costs were covered by the revenues generated at those stations. Fastned expects that more stations will pass the break-even point in the coming months. Fastned began installing stations in The Netherlands in 2015; 57 are currently in operation.

The operating costs per station are limited; all 58 Fastned stations are unmanned and centrally managed from the head office. The next financial goal is to also cover these central operating expenses.

Since these costs remain relatively stable when new stations are added to the network, the costs per station will decrease when new stations are added to the network. The final step to profitability of the company is also to cover depreciation and finance costs. . . .
I wonder when we'll see a U.S. QC charging provider manage station break even?
 
I wonder when we'll see a U.S. QC charging provider manage station break even?[/quote]

One click away:

https://fastned.nl/en/choose-your-priceplan
 
SageBrush said:
GRA said:
I wonder when we'll see a U.S. QC charging provider manage station break even?

One click away:

https://fastned.nl/en/choose-your-priceplan
I'm not sure of the relevance to my question which you quoted, as these are in the Netherlands, where gas prices are much higher than ours and the various tariffs on electricity may be very different. Care to explain?
 
GRA said:
SageBrush said:
GRA said:
I wonder when we'll see a U.S. QC charging provider manage station break even?

One click away:

https://fastned.nl/en/choose-your-priceplan
I'm not sure of the relevance to my question which you quoted, as these are in the Netherlands, where gas prices are much higher than ours and the various tariffs on electricity may be very different. Care to explain?
Gasoline prices do not much affect an EV charging company. Tariffs I don't know about. Installation costs of the stations should be somewhat similar, and that is presumably the major cost to the company.
 
SageBrush said:
Gasoline prices do not much affect an EV charging company.
Sure, they can. Those prices are very high. For me, Blink and EVgo are already too high so I didn't want to pay $1K to $1.5K more to get a car w/CHAdeMO for the privilege of paying more to DC FC my Leaf than it does to fuel my Prius (in US gasoline prices).

When I had a Leaf w/CHAdeMO for 2 years (began in July 2013), it was always on free stations. But, I never paid to charge (at any level) at work or publicly either, which still holds true today. Due to the above, unless/until I get another EV/PHEV w/DC FCing, I will never be a DC FC customer.

http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Netherlands/gasoline_prices/ (not sure how accurate it is) claims it's 1.53 euros per liter there currently. At current exchange rate (the USD is pretty strong right now), that's about $6.13/US gallon.

If Fastned's DC FC rates compare favorable to prevailing gas prices in the Netherlands...
 
cwerdna said:
SageBrush said:
Gasoline prices do not much affect an EV charging company.
Sure, they can. .
I was unclear. I was talking about cost of doing business as a charging company, not retail cost FastNed may choose to charge.

Their story is actually a warning to to any wannabe charging company in the US: rates will likely have to be quite a lot higher than home rates in order to be profitable. Of course I don't know how much volume they see, but that again is the difficulty these companies face: consumers want these stations every 50 miles in any direction but also want the lion's share of charging to occur at home.
 
The "Standard plan" for FastNed is priced at €0.35/kWh and right now the value of $1 euro is pretty much $1 US. From what I can tell, a typical commercial rate for electricity in Amsterdam is €0.20/kWh, so that's a 75% markup. Assuming a typical commercial rate of $0.10/kWh in the US, that would be $0.18/kWh for the same 75% markup.

So, for 20kWh of charge on a DCQC at $0.18/kWh (75% markup), you would pay a little less than $4. Seems like pretty fair pricing to me, on a relative basis.

I've (reluctantly) paid anywhere from $7 to $10 US (no plan) for charging to 80% (often times, adding only 12 - 14 kWh of energy) on a credit card (no US plan, I'm Canadian and infrequently travel in the US)...

If a Dutch company can break even at 75% markup, then many DCQC rates in the US are far too high (even for some monthly plans that include a fixed monthly fee) comparatively. Either they don't control costs as well, or they are gouging consumers...
 
alozzy said:
The "Standard plan" for FastNed is priced at €0.35/kWh and right now the value of $1 euro is pretty much $1 US. From what I can tell, a typical commercial rate for electricity in Amsterdam is €0.20/kWh, so that's a 75% markup. Assuming a typical commercial rate of $0.10/kWh in the US, that would be $0.18/kWh for the same 75% markup.
...

If a Dutch company can break even at 75% markup, then many DCQC rates in the US are far too high (even for some monthly plans that include a fixed monthly fee) comparatively. Either they don't control costs as well, or they are gouging consumers...
35 euro cents/kWh is about $0.37 USD per kWh. That's also in addition to a 9.99 euro/month, which is currently about $10.58 USD. The USD is pretty strong right now vs. the Euro so yes, it's almost 1:1 now. It wasn't this way when I first ventured there in Dec 2010 when it 1 euro was worth about $1.3 USD.

The cheapest plan w/no monthly fee is 0.59 euros/kWh or about $0.62 USD/kWh, which is comparable to the ripoff Blink rates of 59 cents/kWh in California they charge members.

At 59 cents/kWh, if if I average 4 miles/kWh, that's 14.75 cents/mile. If gasoline is $4/gal (it's just about $3/gal for regular in CA right now and $2.387 nationally per http://gasprices.aaa.com/) and I only achieve 40 miles per US gallon in my Prius, that's only 10 cents/mile w/no adventures due to broken equipment, lines, ICEd or blocked spaces, needing to divert from my route and needing to wait.

Your 10 cents/kWh commercial power typical is likely too low and doesn't take into account demand charges that many utilities will charge commercial users for big loads.

TonyWilliams has posted about it a bunch of times like at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=151141#p151141 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=150246#p150246. Since he still runs some DC FCs, I'm not sure if he's posted some real world data recently.

http://web.archive.org/web/20140701... Comparison Study (25kW vs 50kW) 7-3-12.pdf mentions demand charges.

I quickly found https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/infrastructure/071514presentations/04_alexander.pdf via a Google search.
 
The OP asked the question:

I wonder when we'll see a U.S. QC charging provider manage station break even?

I was trying to compare the relative margins that US EV charging companies make vs what this Netherlands company makes. I was not making a comparison to gasoline powered cars. Gas is way too cheap in the US, as far as I'm concerned - both environmental and health costs are nowhere near fully realized in the cost at the pump.

You might argue with the exact margins, but it's pretty clear that in the US, the margins for EV charging companies are typically better, based on market pricing. The cost per kWh is irrelevant, these are different markets. What's relevant is the marginal increase of the electricity they resell.

So, back to the OP's question/point, it would seem that, given the higher margins, the US companies should already be breaking even, all other factors being more or less even. If not, they aren't running their operations as efficiently as this Netherlands company.

I'm assuming, perhaps naively, that the cost of electricity is the highest operating cost of these companies - whether in the US or in Netherlands.
 
alozzy said:
You might argue with the exact margins, but it's pretty clear that in the US, the margins for EV charging companies are typically better, based on market pricing. The cost per kWh is irrelevant, these are different markets. What's relevant is the marginal increase of the electricity they resell.

So, back to the OP's question/point, it would seem that, given the higher margins, the US companies should already be breaking even, all other factors being more or less even. If not, they aren't running their operations as efficiently as this Netherlands company.

I'm assuming, perhaps naively, that the cost of electricity is the highest operating cost of these companies - whether in the US or in Netherlands.
You're assuming there is actually any margin at all for DC FCing due to the cost per kWh + demand charges. Did you look at the presentation I cited which had a cost per charge at the energy and demand rate for 1 to 300 20 kWh charges per month?

Have you looked a CCGI's financials? Electricity is most definitely NOT CCGI's highest operating cost. CCGI bought out the carcass of the Blink network when Ecotality went bankrupt. Look at the annual and quarterly numbers at https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ccgi/financials?ltr=1.

I haven't studied their SEC filings carefully but from http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?filingid=11701365&tabindex=2&type=html
Three Months Ended September 30, 2016 Compared With Three Months Ended September 30, 2015

Revenues

We have generated charging service revenue of $380,857 related to installed EV charging stations for the three months ended September 30, 2016 as compared to $436,259 for the three months ended September 30, 2015, a decrease of $55,402, or 13%, which was primarily a result of a reduction in revenue from a program sponsored by Nissan North America that the Company has participated in since July 2014.
...
(there's a bunch of other revenue and all that adds up to $755K for that quarter)
Cost of Revenues

Cost of revenues primarily consists of depreciation of installed charging stations, amortization of the Blink Network infrastructure, the cost of charging station parts and related services sold, repairs and maintenance, electricity reimbursements to hosts and revenue share payments made to hosts when we are the primary obligor in the revenue share arrangement. Cost of revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2016 were $700,865 (93% of revenues) as compared to $775,240 (77% of revenues) for the three months ended September 30, 2015, a decrease of $74,375, or 10%.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses consist of selling, marketing, advertising, payroll, administrative, finance and professional expenses.

Compensation expense
decreased by $612,355, or 28%, from $2,176,818 for the three months ended September 30, 2015 to $1,564,463 for the three months ended September 30, 2016. The decrease was primarily attributable to a reduction of approximately $680,000 in non-cash stock-based compensation expense as compared to the 2015 period (which includes a $218,000 reduction of stock-based compensation expense related to share-based payments made to our Chief Operating Officer during the three months ended September 30, 2015 under the terms of his employment agreement) as well as a reduction in payroll and other related expenses of approximately $467,000 due to the departure of certain management and other personnel during the second half of 2015, partially offset by $400,000 of commission expense in the 2016 period (of which, $217,000 is payable in cash and $183,000 is payable in stock options).

Other operating expenses consist primarily of rent, travel and IT expenses. Other operating expenses decreased by $40,723, or 11%, from $383,497 for the three months ended September 30, 2015 to $342,774 for the three months ended September 30, 2016. The decrease was primarily attributable to decreased IT expenses and call center expenses as the Company inaugurated its own internal call center in Phoenix, Arizona during 2016 as compared to the prior period.

General and administrative expenses increased by $156,619, or 59%, from $264,334 for the three months ended September 30, 2015 to $420,953 for the three months ended September 30, 2016. The increase was primarily due to increased legal and consulting fees as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2015 resulting from increased general corporate matters and litigation activity.
Page 2 under Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations has tables w/such figures.
 
I'm out of my depth when it comes to the specific financial details of this one company you mentioned, nor do I have the time to read all those links you posted. Sorry.

Anyways, I'm glad that a Netherlands company is starting to break even on what seems to be a reasonable markup for reselling electricity. Suggests there's hope for other providers in some markets...

The bigger question you alluded to is the size of the US EV charging market, which IS affected by the cost of gasoline. There's no question that there's a niche market for DCQC (at least, in some regions); however, given the Trump government stance on the environment in general, there's unlikely to be compelling savings for consumers of EVs vs efficient ICE cars, if new EVs aren't sticker price competitive. So, the EV charging market might see limited growth.

Thankfully, used EV purchases are more economically compelling for consumers and, with more competition in the US EV car market, new EV pricing is becoming more competitive with ICE equivalents. So, there's still hope - despite ridiculously low gas prices in the US and Trump govt policy.

In Vancouver Canada, where I live, there's clear financial savings for consumers to buy EVs, thanks to our much higher gas prices (we have a carbon tax). So, relatively speaking, the EV charging market should grow faster in our region, if priced fairly. But our market will always be tiny compared to most US markets and economies of scale are definitely relevant for EV charging companies.
 
alozzy said:
I'm out of my depth when it comes to the specific financial details of this one company you mentioned, nor do I have the time to read all those links you posted. Sorry.

Anyways, I'm glad that a Netherlands company is starting to break even on what seems to be a reasonable markup for reselling electricity. Suggests there's hope for other providers in some markets... [<snip rest>
Just to be clear, what the article said was the first two stations were breaking even as far as operating expenses, not that the company was, so we need to be sure we're not comparing apples (i.e. Fastned) to oranges (i.e. CCGI). cwerdna has already pointed out how the California Blink stations cost more to recharge than just putting gas in a Prius even if gas prices were far higher than they are now, and the same holds true at current prices for what by current standards isn't a terribly fuel-efficient car. I have a Blink QC plus 10 L2s ($0.49/kWh for members, $0.59 for guests) within walking distance. but where I normally get gas I'd currently be paying $2.66/gal. for my 2003 Forester, which gets 28-31 mpg highway in the real world with me driving it (rated at 27 MPG Hwy EPA under the then existing standards, or 25 MPG Hwy EPA under the revised 2008 standard), so there's absolutely no financial incentive for anyone not driving a pickup or huge SUV to get a PEV if they must rely on public charging that's as expensive as that. And no U.S. charging company other than Chargepoint (which only supplies the equipment and billing service) is yet profitable.

Absent cheap storage that can limit demand costs, plus reductions in maintenance, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of room in most parts of the U.S. for public charging to be profitable, when facing the competition from current U.S. gas prices.
 
US gas prices are silly, yet some people choose to drive EVs anyways, so that's a niche market that DCQC providers can service.

There's sure to be consolidation and economies of scale coming to this sector, as there are too many DCQC providers chasing too few customers. Probably a good thing that will eventually lead to profitability for the survivors and lower prices for consumers.

I understand what you are saying about profitability in the face of ICE competition, but they are distinct markets. The problem for DCQC providers is that their niche isn't big enough for all of them to stay alive and they aren't being realistic with their pricing
 
alozzy said:
I'm out of my depth when it comes to the specific financial details of this one company you mentioned, nor do I have the time to read all those links you posted. Sorry.
Please then just look at this imageenergy-demand1.png. The number of charges is per month, for a 50 kW charger, providing 20 kWh per charge.
GRA said:
>Blink <span class="tip">Compare EVSE equipment</span></a>QC plus 10 L2s ($0.49/kWh for members, $0.59 for guests)
Blink charges vary by region, in my area, per http://www.blinknetwork.com/blinkMap.html (one can put in San Jose, CA), one can see these prices commonly:
L2: 49 cents/kWh for Blink Plus (members) and 59 cents/kWh for Blink Guest
DC FC: 59 cents/kWh for Blink Plus (members) and 69 cents/kWh for Blink guest
 
alozzy said:
US gas prices are silly, yet some people choose to drive EVs anyways, so that's a niche market that DCQC providers can service.
Silly? Maybe... yes, it's unfortunately not priced in accordance w/its environmental harm. People here complain about "pain at the pump" when gas nears $4/US gal, which is (at current exchange rates) equivalent to about $1.41 CAD per litre.

Some people choose to drive EVs for a plethora of reasons: driving experience, environmental, reducing usage of foreign oil, carpool lane benefits, cheap electricity (not in much of CA), free charging somewhere (e.g. work), etc.

For me, some of mine include all of the above except carpool lane. I rarely drive during carpool lane restricted hours, so I almost never benefit from it. And, my home electricity is not cheap.
alozzy said:
There's sure to be consolidation and economies of scale coming to this sector, as there are too many DCQC providers chasing too few customers. Probably a good thing that will eventually lead to profitability for the survivors and lower prices for consumers.
There aren't that many. In the SF Bay Area, there are really two: EVgo and Blink.

alozzy said:
I understand what you are saying about profitability in the face of ICE competition, but they are distinct markets. The problem for DCQC providers is that their niche isn't big enough for all of them to stay alive and they aren't being realistic with their pricing
They're not totally distinct. Anyone w/half a brain can do the math and can weigh whether or not it is worth the time, money and inconvenience to divert to DC FC and possibly have an adventure or anxiety vs. taking their ICEV, if they have one.

As for realistic in their pricing, well Blink (owned by CCGI) is bleeding cash all over the place. Do you have numbers on EVgo's profitability or lack of? I only know of http://insideevs.com/nrg-restructures-business-money-losing-evse-division-shifted-greenco/.

You seem to have this idea that DC FC providers have big markups on electricity. I'm not convinced of that at all in CA, esp. due to demand charges. But that doesn't mean I like the pricing and would use it at those prices.

I already decided in July 2015 that I wasn't going to bother paying $1K to $1.5K more for a car w/CHAdeMO after having lived w/one for 2 years. $1K at $4/gal at 40 mpg can fuel my Prius 10K miles. I always do better than 40 mpg in CA.
 
alozzy said:
The "Standard plan" for FastNed is priced at €0.35/kWh and right now the value of $1 euro is pretty much $1 US. From what I can tell, a typical commercial rate for electricity in Amsterdam is €0.20/kWh, so that's a 75% markup. Assuming a typical commercial rate of $0.10/kWh in the US, that would be $0.18/kWh for the same 75% markup.
This is false accounting because the fixed costs are not that different.
 
@cwerdna, you mentioned in a prior post this article:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140701114438/http://www.americas.fujielectric.com/sites/default/files/DC%20Quick%20Charging%20-%20FEA%20Comparison%20Study%20%20(25kW%20vs%20%2050kW)%207-3-12.pdf

Which suggests that, if DCQC providers select 25kW EVSEs instead of 50kW EVSEs, they can avoid very significant demand charges. If their profits are in fact being destroyed by demand charges and they are bleeding cash because of that, then 25kW EVSEs would seem to be the path to profitability.

Yet, I had a quick look on plugshare for the SF Bay area and all the CHADEMO stations I found pictures of had 50kW charging. Makes one wonder why they haven't at least experimented with 25kW charging to see if EV owners might choose slower charging for less $$$ as a good tradeoff. Seems like they don't care too much about demand charge avoidance, or they invested heavily in the wrong infrastructure to begin with and are now stuck with it - in which case an upstart DCQC provider who deploys new 25kW infrastructure will surely grab market share.

So, I'm still not convinced that an innovative DCQC provider can't turn a profit.

In any event, the market will determine their viability pretty quickly - if they are truly losing money at "preferred" rates of 49 cents/kWh, then they won't be in business for long as it would seem that EV consumers aren't willing to pay those rates.
 
alozzy said:
@cwerdna, you mentioned in a prior post this article:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140701... Comparison Study (25kW vs 50kW) 7-3-12.pdf

Which suggests that, if DCQC providers select 25kW EVSEs instead of 50kW EVSEs, they can avoid very significant demand charges. If their profits are in fact being destroyed by demand charges and they are bleeding cash because of that, then 25kW EVSEs would seem to be the path to profitability.

Yet, I had a quick look on plugshare for the SF Bay area and all the CHADEMO stations I found pictures of had 50kW charging. Makes one wonder why they haven't at least experimented with 25kW charging to see if EV owners might choose slower charging for less $$$ as a good tradeoff. Seems like they don't care too much about demand charge avoidance, or they invested heavily in the wrong infrastructure to begin with and are now stuck with it - in which case an upstart DCQC provider who deploys new 25kW infrastructure will surely grab market share.
Tony wanted one that was under 20 kW (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=5867). Well, Blink only developed http://www.blinknetwork.com/chargers-commercial-dc-fast.html which from their data sheet claims 60 kW, adjustable from 30 kW. I've never used one, so I dunno.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130112065716/http://www.nissanqc.com/ is 44 kW at max and those are common at Nissan dealers and some Blink locations. I've used 3 of these.

EVgo I think has been deploying ABB 50 kW dual-standard ones or http://www.btcpower.com/products-and-applications/EV-Fast-Charger/ (available in 25 or 50 kW; not sure which power level they use). Some sites have a dual-standard DC FC + 1 of the Nissan/Sumitomo CHAdeMO units.

Problem is, EVgo bills by time and not by kWh. And, in some regions of the US, it is illegal (per regulations) for a non-electric utility to sell electricity by the kWh, so they have to go by time. 25 kW DC FC is slower and becomes more of an issue w/bigger batteries.

I think you could still hit big demand charges if you install multiple 20 to 25 kW DC chargers at a location and more than one gets used at a time.
alozzy said:
In any event, the market will determine their viability pretty quickly - if they are truly losing money at "preferred" rates of 49 cents/kWh, then they won't be in business for long as it would seem that EV consumers aren't willing to pay those rates.
To DC FC, It's 59 cents/kWh for me in my area as a Blink member. Non-members pay 69 cents/kWh.

You can see EVgo's pricing for my area at https://www.evgo.com/charging-plans/.
 
cwerdna said:
GRA said:
>Blink <span class="tip">Compare EVSE equipment</span></a>QC plus 10 L2s ($0.49/kWh for members, $0.59 for guests)
Blink charges vary by region, in my area, per http://www.blinknetwork.com/blinkMap.html (one can put in San Jose, CA), one can see these prices commonly:
L2: 49 cents/kWh for Blink Plus (members) and 59 cents/kWh for Blink Guest
DC FC: 59 cents/kWh for Blink Plus (members) and 69 cents/kWh for Blink guest
Same here, I was quoting L2 not QC pricing.
 
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=23794 has a pointer to a report
This project analyzed data from every charging session in 2016 from all 230 of EVgo’s DC fast charging stations in the
state of California. From that data, we developed demand profiles for eight common types of site hosts, and analyzed the
components of EVgo’s costs based on the utility tariffs the charging stations were on.

Report is pretty lengthy. I may not be able to even skim in detail for awhile.
 
Back
Top