Seven ways to play electric vehicle charging

How to achieve profitable growth in the fast-growing electric vehicle charging market

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The transformation of the auto industry is in full swing

Electric vehicle (EV) charging is coming of age, with more regulatory and commercial certainty around battery electric vehicle (BEV) adoption. This drives the need for a charging infrastructure, leading to a ~210m installed base of charge points in 2035. Overall, private alternating current (AC) or slow chargers will form the majority of the installed base as consumers prefer to charge at home or at work, where dwell time is higher.

Charging patterns and dwell times determine where people will charge and what infrastructure is needed. Destination and on-the-go charging represent the best use case for fast charging (DC, HPC), given a low consumer dwell time. As car and charger speed increases, average electricity throughput from fast chargers will also increase, improving the user experience through shorter charging sessions. Higher and increasing electricity throughput means public fast charging is expected to capture a significant and growing share of electricity demand towards 2035.

This report provides an overview of the underlying market drivers, value chain definition and key revenue pools as well as considerations for profitable growth going forward.

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Main revenue pools

The EV charging value chain has six main revenue pools, ranging from charge point hardware to additional value-added services:

Charge point hardware
Charge point software
Land and assets
Electricity provision
Charger-related services
Add. e-mobility software-led value-added services
  • Production/ sale of charge point hardware (AC and DC chargers) and necessary accessories, incl. wholesale and resell/financing margins
  • Development of software to operate and monitor the charge point, i.e., Charge Point Management Systems (CPMS)
  • Real estate rights and ownership of one or multiple charge stations with related CAPEX cost
  • Energy procurement contract (including GoOs)
  • Local distribution system operation responsible for operating infrastructure necessary for electricity supply to the charge point station (at required power level)
  • Hardware service provision, incl. installing all charge point components
  • Management/ operation of charge point network (sourcing electricity, maintenance, IT network, customer service etc.)
  • Access to and administration of charging service to end-customers across multiple CPO networks (incl. roaming), i.e., E-Mobility Service Provider (EMSP)
  • Other software-driven services

Seven ways to play

Across the six revenue pools, we see seven key ways to play tapping into one or more revenue pools.

  • 1
    Smart charge point provider → Engineering and manufacturing of charging hardware plus the software that makes it smart
  • 2
    Charge point management software → Hardware agnostic software that enables operation and better integrates with other systems
  • 3
    Owners → Owner of a) the land on which the chargers are installed and b) in some cases also the chargers
  • 4
    Installer and maintenance → Electricians who are installing the chargers and maintaining it
  • 5
    Value added service providers → Provides services around charging (non-digital and digital)
  • 6
    Charging solution provider → One-stop shop that designs the end solution, sources, installs and operates charge points
  • 7
    Charge point operator and owner → Installs,operates and owns charge points by themselves (excludes land right ownership)

Financial performance of selected ways to play

While most plays show strong growth (40+% p.a.), only few providers - mainly smart charge point providers - were able to realize an EBITDA so far. As the EV adoption increases globally and the EV charging market grows (market potential estimated to 100+bn EUR by 2035 excluding electricity sales), market participants across the seven ways to play will scale and become profitable. To enable profitable growth, focusing on select business model considerations dependent on ways to play will be key.

About the “EV charging market outlook“ report by PwC and Strategy&

The findings of this report are based on a customer survey with 3,000+ respondents from the US, Europe, Norway and China, interviews with industry executives and analysts as well as insights from work by PwC Autofacts® and data insights teams.

Contact us

Christian Brickenstein

Christian Brickenstein

Partner, Strategy& Germany

Henning Rennert

Henning Rennert

Partner, Strategy& Germany

Milos Bartosek

Milos Bartosek

Director, PwC Norway

Tel: +47 952 60 758

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