Popular EVSE Supplier Abandons North America

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In This Issue

• A Day Early (and STILL a Dollar Short)

• Another One Bites the Dust

• Hedging Your Bets

• Are You Down With OCPP?

• From Around the Internet

• More Goodies

A Day Early (and STILL a Dollar Short)

Hello, all! I’ve decided to publish this edition a day early, because I talk about the Enel X news and there’s a chance that by the time this issue would normally ship, a third-party will have swept in and announce that it’s buying up all of the assets making this issue old news. I try to be evergreen when I can with topics to avoid that, but knowing my luck I’d totally get sniped on this.

I’ve been at it for a month now, and I thank you all for being here. If this isn’t right for you, it’s easy to unsubscribe. There’s a link at the bottom of the page (unless you’re viewing this on the internet, then just don’t revisit this site 😀).

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Another One Bites the Dust

More proof that the EV disinformation campaign is working, a stalwart in the EV charging hardware business has announced it is ceasing North American operations. Enel X, the makers of JuiceBox, have decided to yeet out of the United States and Canada, leaving a wake of hardware without software to control it behind.

JuiceBox was one of the first big home EVSE charging brands, and often recommended by many (including myself). The company cites “high interest rates” and “the dynamics of the EV market in the U.S. have changed a lot in the last year.”

Enel X isn’t small potatoes here. Enel, the parent company, is an Italian multinational company who manufacturers and distributes both electricity and gas. According to its Wikipedia entry, it’s the second-largest electric utility company in the world and the 56th largest company overall. Enel clearly has the money and resources.

Interest rates do make sense, as installing DCFC hardware can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and movement a few percentage points in what the site owner has to pay for hardware could make or break the install. But the dynamics of the U.S. market is far more telling. It might not be the real reason why the company is shutting down, but let’s take a look at the change in sentiment.

EV misinformation is working. I’ve talked about it here before, and this is yet another example. That misinformation campaign has convinced more than one automaker to whoa up on EV plans – at a cost of millions of dollars – to continue to deliver gas-powered vehicles in larger quantities. It’s no wonder a company like Enel would be like, “yo, I’m out.”

The frustrating thing is nearly everyone is in agreement that for Class 1 vehicles – everything from a Nissan Sentra to a Toyota Tacoma to a Ford Explorer – will eventually be powered by some sort of battery. Regulations will eventually demand it. It’s where we’re heading. If we all know that that’s where we’re going to end up being – even if it’s not in my lifetime – why spend all the money to start a BEV project, spend more money pulling back from those projects, lose a bunch of money in sunk costs, and then spend more money in the future to restart those projects when you could just, you know, do it right the first time?

There are going to be tons of case studies about this time in the future, and it’s not going to look too kindly back on the money that was wasted because of trolls on the internet.

As for JuiceBox, customers are in a precarious situation. Home users shouldn’t have any issues using their hardware. The app will no longer work on their smartphones, so they might lose some energy tracking abilities and some ability to control off-peak charging, but off-peak charging can be set up in every single EV from the built-in infotainment system. It sucks and its still a crappy way to treat customers, but ultimately the effect shouldn’t be too traumatic.

Landlords, business owners, and others who installed JuiceNet Enterprise and ran commercial-grade JuiceBox equipment are in trouble. The level 2 EVSE fails over to just working if it’s not connected to the cloud software (I know this from personal experience, actually), but the DCFC equipment that requires a payment processor remains an unknown. There are a ton of new DCFC installs in places like southern Michigan where I’m sure some business owners aren’t too happy.

Even if they weren’t using the cloud for payment processing, they likely are for access to control. That also won’t work when the phone app is no longer available. Maybe RFID tokens will still block everyday users, but owners won’t have the ability to update that access through the cloud.

This experience is going to sour many people to idea of investing in charging hardware for their business. I wouldn’t be surprised if ChargePoint isn’t getting some phone calls right now asking, “what if you decide to bail on us?”

At least with Ionna and Electrify America and EVgo, the land is leased and the charging hardware is operated by the charging company. While there still might be a risk to business owners, they shouldn’t be putting up the full amount for the charging hardware like Enel X DCFC owners did.

Of course, EV sentiment could all change after the election in November, so Enel might end up regretting pulling out right when it did.

Speaking of not being convinced Trump is going to win…

Hedging Your Bets

We all know how Elon Musk leans politically these days, and has gone as far as saying that if Kamala Harris wins in November that it’d be the end of our great republic. Of course that’s not true, but if he really believed that, why would he be preparing to lobby a Democratic government?