7 Uniquely Positioned EV Charging Stocks (2022)
Are you currently considering investing in EV charging shares? You’re making a great choice to do some research prior to investing — we’ve done a deep-dive consisting of around 40 hours researching the EV charging sector and the various companies involved in it, and below you can find our findings.
A variety of EV charging stocks sky-rocketed in November 2021 upon the announcement that President Joe Biden would be allocating just under $8 billion dollars into the creation, development, and manufacturing of electric vehicle charging stations for the general public — with the government’s current goal to install approximately 500,000 new electrical vehicle charging stations around the country, this means that over 10,000 new electrical vehicle charging stations will need to be installed every month for the next 5 years — but, this isn’t the only thing that’s fueling EV charging stocks.
There are a variety of tax incentives currently being offered to those who purchase an EV, which falls underneath the Build Back Better incentive – a framework that’s backed by EV power heads including Tesla and Apple. There are similar incentives being offered for making the switch to an EV in Europe and many Asian countries as well.
The time to invest in EV charging stocks has never been brighter with all these incentives, infrastructure bonuses, high gas prices, etc, but what do you need to know before you go ahead and purchase some shares? If you’re currently asking yourself this question, then rest assured that we are here to lend you a helping hand in your decision.
In this article, we are going to be taking a closer look at EV charging stocks, including why you may want to invest, what the primary risks are that need to be considered, as well as a helpful roundup of some uniquely positioned EV charging stocks that might be worth investing in this year. Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
Why Should You Invest In EV Charging?
There are plenty of benefits that will come along with investing in EV charging station shares.
It’s important to acknowledge that there is a need for more charging infrastructure, not only in the USA but globally. More and more consumers are becoming increasingly more concerned with how eco-friendly and ethically conscious the brands, companies, and organizations that they do business with are. We conducted a brief survey here at Greenery Financial and around 90% of consumers/responses self-reported to be more likely to be a repeat customer of a company they feel is an ethically conscious company as opposed to one that isn’t.
If you have already begun to do some research of your own then you likely already know that Tesla has been creating its own charging network specifically designed for its electrical vehicle cars. Many people often see this as a threat to the industry, as they have such a first mover advantage, but people fail to recognize how big this space will be in the future. Tesla’s charging network is a more ‘premium’ solution and cannot handle the capacity that’s needed today, and will only continue to be oversaturated as time goes on – this will likely result in Tesla restricting their stations again to Teslas only, posing no real risk to other EV charging companies in our opinion.
Other Factors to Consider
While the base-case we outlined above is a relatively simple there’s more layers to it if you care to look into it further — for example there’s lots of subsidies going on in the sector — President Joe Biden has not only announced that he has a goal to create more than 500,000 EV chargers, but Biden has been closely working with EV charging companies in order to get better understanding about ways to successfully create a “national network” of EV charging stations that will be made available to the US public. That’s mostly politican-speak and doesn’t mean much — but what it does mean is Biden is pushing this EV chargin agenda, along with his administration, and will be continuing existing subsidies and expanding them so long as he stays in office.
While so far we’ve only mentioned the US side of this story, it’s not only the White House and American EV companies that are fueling the growth of the industry — In 2021, close to 3 million EVs were sold in Europe, and that amount is expected to increase all the way to more than 8 million in 2025, and there’s huge amounts being sold all over the developing world in the form of mostly motorbikes. The EV revolution is here, and the market stretches far beyond the US — we just are focusing on the US here as this is the largest target market for the industry currently.
As for the USA, in 2021 sales of EV cars reached to around half a million, which is a steady rise from previous years, but still relatively tiny — With all that being said, with the clear and obvious drive being taken by world leaders and EV market leaders to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, it only makes sense for us investors to get in early and be patient as the ramp up in EV production and demand for EV charging increase. Waiting too long to invest in such high growth industries is often risky, as once adoption hits a critical stage, and it becomes common knowledge, it’s often too late to invest. We don’t believe we’re quite to this point, but we’re close — and that’s why we’re investing in the industry already despite their real growth being a year or two from now.
Risks to Consider
There are many different types of risks that can arise when investing in any type of share or investment and while it’s important to understand those we’re generally all quite familiar with them — if you’re not we’d recommend checking out our beginners guide for investing in stocks.
As for the risks that come are specific to investing in EV charging stocks there’s quite a few, the most glaring one is an economic crises or a change in administration/government which is not so ‘green-energy’ and ‘eco’ focused could significantly hurt the industry, as during hard times people care less about the environment and sustainability, and with a different administration subsidies may go away for EV’s and/or the expansion of the charging networks for them.
Another big risk to consider is that many of the public companies in this industry are VERY similar in business model, meaning if you go all in on the wrong one, and it doesn’t get the government contract/funding, or has bad management, or anything goes wrong, the competition can easily eat their lunch. Because of this we’d say it’s essential to not only diversify in this industry, but also select unique companies in the industry — we’ve done this below, selecting companies that are somewhat different than each other and focus on different areas of EV charging, some being station operators, others being equipment manufacturers, others being storage/battery-related tech to charging, etc.
Overall we’re very bullish on the industry, however we’re also cautious due to the risk of changing administrations — at this stage we believe EV charging stocks will have reached the critical adoption phase before any of these risks manifest. We don’t keep an outsized portion of our portfolio in the industry, but a normal allocation for us, which is around 5-10% of our equity portfolio for growth sectors like this one.
7 Uniquely Positioned Public Stocks
If you’re interested in investing, it only makes sense that you should opt for a company that offers an area of focus or niche that is unique to the competition — that may have a moat and a competitive edge that protects them from competitors and new companies. With that being said, here’s a closer look at some of the best public stock options currently available in 2022:
Chargepoint Holdings: (NASDAQ: CHPR)
ChargePoint Holdings provides turnkey solutions for EV infrastructure. They provide everything from hardware installation to software integration and management. Their main product is the ChargePoint Network, which allows drivers to charge their vehicle anywhere, and it is this innovation that separates them from the rest. The company has been around since 2000 and has over 1 million customers worldwide.
In addition to providing EV charging services, the company also offers other services including parking lot management, fleet management, payment processing, and data analytics.
Evatran Inc.: (NASDAQ: EATR)
Evatran Inc. is a provider of electric vehicle charging systems. It was founded in 2010 and has grown into one of the largest players in the EV charging space.
Its main focus is on the development and production of EV charging systems. The company sells these systems directly to consumers and through dealerships, which makes them a market leader. Evatran Inc.’s main competitors include ChargePoint Holdings, Tesla Motors, and Sunverge Technologies.
Greenlots Inc.: (NASDAQ: GLTS)
Greenlots Inc. is a leading global provider of wireless charging solutions. The company specializes in developing and manufacturing wireless charging pads, which uniquely positions them. As of 2019, the company had sold more than 6 million wireless chargers. The company has operations in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.
Greenlots Inc. competes with companies like ChargePoint Holdings and to a lesser extent Tesla, so if you want to hedge your chargpoint holdings you may want to own a little green lots as well — or simply pick whichever one you believe is the better company.
Nuvve Corporation: (NYSE: NVV)
Nuvve Corp. is a provider of EV charging stations and related components. Founded in 2013, the company operates out of California. It focuses on the design, manufacture, and distribution of EV charging stations.
The company mainly targets commercial applications such as hotels, offices, retail stores, and restaurants, which sets them apart from the rest. Nuvve Corp. competes a bit with green lots and charge point however they focus more on non-station charging, so at home or while in a shop, making them a better play if you believe charging will be done when shopping, or at hotels when traveling, rather than at ‘gas station’ type places.
Plug Power Inc.: (NASDAQ: PLUG)
Plug Power Inc. is a manufacturer of EV charging stations. Founded in 1999, the company develops, manufactures, and distributes EV charging products. The company primarily serves commercial markets such as hotels, office buildings, and shopping centers.
The company also supplies residential users with EV charging accessories. Plug Power Inc. competes primarily with Nuvve and Tesla, although to some extent with other EV charging companies of course. There’s also some overlap.
SolarCity Corp.: (NASDAQ: SCTY)
SolarCity Corp. is an American solar energy company based in San Mateo, California. The company designs, installs, owns, and maintains solar power EV charging facilities, which uniquely positions it from the rest.
It also provides financing for its customers. In 2016, it generated $1 billion in revenue. SolarCity Corp. competes with other large providers of solar energy such as Sunverge Technologies and ChargePoint Holdings.
Sunverge Technologies Inc.: (NASDAQOTCBB: SVGT)
Sunverge Technologies Inc. is a provider that produces and sells EV charging equipment. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
The company’s primary business model is selling EV charging stations to commercial establishments and they have become solidified as one of the biggest names in the game. Sunverge Technologies’ main competitors are Chargepoint Holdings, Tesla Motors, Greenlots, and Plug Power.
Keep in mind while they’re a public company currently they cannot be purchased in all brokerage accounts, so if you cannot find them in your brokerage you’re out of luck — this is because it’s traded via illiquid OTC markets rather than through a traditionally listing which requires more regulatory filings and compliance obligations.
Bottom Line
It’s pretty clear that electric vehicles and, in turn, EV charging infrastructure, are here to stay. Investing in EV charging stocks is a great way to get started in the electric vehicle industry. While the industry is still relatively young, it has already seen some major changes and advancements over the past few years. There are now more and more people who are getting involved with the electric car movement, and that means that demand for EV charging stations will continue to grow.
As we have shown above, there are a variety of different approaches and areas of focus being taken within this particular sector, which means that, as an investor, you may want to consider several of these companies until there is more data and insight into the success of each of these businesses.
Needless to say, if you’re interested in investing and you feel as though the growth in the electrical vehicle expansion will continue on the up (and there’s plenty of reason to believe that), investing in the companies that are helping to create this charging infrastructure before it has been created seems like a pretty smart investing move to make.
Still, even though this particular sector is seemingly checking all the boxes for an investor, we still strongly recommend that you take the time to make sure that you’re aware of the potential risks that may come along with investing in this area, as we mentioned earlier in this article.
Thank you for reading, we hope that this has provided you with some assistance as you make your decision!