Insights from AMPECO’s CEO
At the recent Intercharge Network Conference (ICNC 2024), AMPECO’s CEO Orlin Radev delivered a powerful keynote that cut to the heart of the EV charging industry’s struggles. With AMPECO’s platform supporting 150 CPOs and eMPs across 60 markets, Orlin offered unique insights into the 4 fundamental challenges holding back the industry’s potential.
What’s at stake for CPOs?
The EV charging industry is at a critical inflection point. Recent market performance across public charging providers shows concerning trends, with some major players seeing stock valuations drop by over 70% and others facing consolidation or restructuring. These market shifts aren’t just numbers on a chart – they represent a stark warning about the fundamental challenges facing the industry.
The consequences of failing to address these challenges are severe: loss of customer trust, diminishing market share, poor returns on investment, and ultimately, slower EV adoption rates that could impede global climate goals. As Aurelien de Meaux, Co-founder & CEO of Electra, notes, “We are likely to see a Darwinian period over the next three years, with a significant shakeout among CPO players. I anticipate that less than half of the current players will survive by the end of the decade.”
Challenges in EV charging: What’s holding us back?
Through AMPECO’s extensive work with charging networks worldwide, Orlin identified four fundamental challenges facing the EV charging industry: reliability, ease of use, regulatory compliance, and profitability. These interconnected issues form the complex puzzle that Charge Point Operators must solve to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving market.
Reliability is still an industry-wide issue
Despite years of innovation, charger reliability remains a significant hurdle. Orlin cited alarming statistics—36% of ChargePoint chargers and and 25% of EVGo chargers in the US were nonfunctional this year, and 18% of all charging sessions failed in 2023 highlighting the magnitude of the problem.
“In other industries, we expect near-perfect uptime. In EV charging, we are far from it.”
Achieving high uptime is difficult due to various factors, including hardware diversity, software integration issues, and a lack of proactive maintenance. Many CPOs only realize there’s an issue when customers complain, which means they’re always playing catch-up. Fixing reliability requires not just addressing current problems but also setting up systems to proactively detect and resolve them before customers are impacted.
The battle for simplicity
Interoperability, multiple apps, and inconsistent user experiences compound the complexity of EV charging. Whether it’s through a CPO’s app, eMSP platform, or third-party providers like Plugshare, the fragmentation of systems leads to a disjointed user experience. This complexity directly affects customer satisfaction and return rates.
“Whoever wins the battle of convenience and simplicity will have the highest rate of satisfied, returning clients.”
For CPOs, the challenge lies in creating a seamless, intuitive experience that integrates roaming, payments, navigation, and charging session management across multiple systems. Simplicity will be a key differentiator for successful businesses in this space.
Navigating the regulations minefield
With thousands of regulations spanning payments, data security, and building codes, the ever-changing regulatory landscape adds another layer of complexity for CPOs.
For example, compliance with Germany’s Eichrecht regulations for accurate metering and billing, adhering to the UK’s public charge point regulations that mandate clear pricing and contactless payments, and meeting the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) requirements for uniformity across the EU can be particularly challenging.
This ever-changing landscape requires CPOs to stay agile and ensure that both hardware and software comply with local and international regulations. Adapting to new regulations can be costly and time-consuming, especially if the software stack isn’t flexible enough to handle changes efficiently.
Profitability remains the ultimate challenge
Even if reliability, ease of use, and regulatory compliance are achieved, profitability remains a challenge for many CPOs. Orlin underscored how difficult it is to turn a profit in the EV charging industry, where low margins on energy and high upfront costs create financial strain.
To become profitable, CPOs need to optimize everything from site selection and utilization rates to reducing operational costs. Those who can find the right balance will not only survive but thrive, contributing to the wider adoption of EVs and helping to achieve global climate goals.
How AMPECO is helping solve these challenges
Each of these four challenges—reliability, ease of use, regulatory compliance, and profitability—is a hurdle on your EV charging journey. The focus must shift from clearing each hurdle to learning how to jump higher and further.
This is where the right software stack comes into play.
“We’ve seen firsthand that achieving success in this industry requires more than just overcoming individual challenges. It demands strategic choices in partners, suppliers, and business models, but above all, it requires the freedom and capacity to innovate without being constrained by your technology.”
The right software tools should empower your business to make those bigger leaps, enabling you to differentiate and scale effectively.
At AMPECO, we’ve built our platform with this in mind. Our mission is to provide more than just a powerful CPMS. We offer a robust, flexible foundation that supports everything from residential charging to large-scale public networks. By offering open APIs and out-of-the-box integrations, AMPECO enables businesses to manage the complexity of the EV charging ecosystem more easily, so you can focus on innovation and growth, rather than reinventing the wheel.
“With the right software stack, managing the complexity becomes much easier.”
With AMPECO’s platform acting as an enabler, managing these complexities, whether they involve uptime, regulatory compliance, or scalability—becomes much simpler, allowing you to focus on what truly sets your business apart.
Case study 1: Accelerating fleet charging
One of AMPECO’s early customers exemplifies the power of strategic software adoption. When they approached AMPECO, they were managing everything in-house—from manufacturing hardware to building their own backend — but they faced a critical juncture when pursuing major fleet opportunities. The need to integrate with third-party hardware vendors and implement advanced features like remote monitoring and troubleshooting
capabilities and load balancing presented a 12-month development challenge. By partnering with AMPECO, they slashed this timeline to just three months, securing a major fleet contract with the world’s largest eCommerce company as a result.
Case study 2: Automotive OEM: Differentiating in a crowded EV market
Another prime example involves a major automotive OEM. Like many others, this OEM faced the challenge of catching up to Tesla in the rapidly evolving EV landscape. However, merely keeping up wasn’t enough. They needed to stand out by delivering a unique and premium experience that was aligned with their luxury brand and the high expectations of their customers.
The OEM had ambitious goals: to offer an exceptional home charging experience, establish and manage a public EV charging network across their dealership network, and provide seamless and reliable charging services to their extensive fleet customers—all under tight deadlines. These objectives posed a critical question:
They needed to decide where to invest their time and money to differentiate in a crowded market. At the same time, they had to navigate the complexities of smart charging regulations in the UK, Eichrecht requirements in Germany, and stringent dealership rules in the US.
Faced with these challenges, the OEM made a pivotal choice: instead of developing everything from scratch, they focused on delivering unique customer experiences, particularly for home charging, and opted for a reliable software partner to handle the rest. By choosing AMPECO’s platform, they secured a solution that provided core functionality out of the box, freeing up their team to innovate in areas that mattered most to their customers.
Case study 3: EDRI – Scaling a public EV charging network across Europe
E.ON Drive Infrastructure (EDRI) operates one of Europe’s largest charging networks, with 6,000 charge ports spanning 11 countries. Managing this vast network means navigating complex tax laws, payment systems, and regulations while processing hundreds of thousands of daily transactions.
By choosing AMPECO, EDRI gained the flexibility to scale efficiently and meet the demands of its growing network. The platform’s out-of-the-box integrations and customizable solutions allowed EDRI to streamline operations and focus on their expansion goal of 30,000 public chargers by 2030.
Managing complexity to achieve success
The complexity in the EV charging industry isn’t going away, but with the right software stack, it becomes manageable. Orlin closed his keynote by emphasizing the need for partners, tools, and innovation that help businesses “jump higher and further” to overcome industry challenges.
As the EV charging landscape grows more complex, success demands more than just technical solutions; it requires the freedom and capacity to innovate.
AMPECO’s vision extends beyond creating a powerful CPMS. The platform serves as a robust foundation that empowers charging providers to build their unique solutions without reinventing fundamentals. By managing the core complexities of reliability, user experience, and regulatory compliance, AMPECO enables businesses to focus on their true differentiators—creating unique value for their customers and scaling confidently in this dynamic market.
Interested in learning how AMPECO can help you tackle these challenges? Discover how our platform can help you scale efficiently and boost profitability.
