ChargePoint CEO says growth is starting to accelerate after a 70% stock surge

ChargePoint shares rose more than 70% after second-quarter revenue of $116.1M beat the $105.2M expected and losses came in far below forecast. Its Level 3 rollout targets Europe, where AFIR mandates a 150kW charging point every 60km on the trans-European core network.

ChargePoint’s shares rose more than 70% on Thursday. Chief executive Rick Wilmer called it the beginning of the momentum, CNBC reported.

The quarter beat expectations on both lines. Revenue was $116.1M against $105.2M forecast, and the loss per share was 35 cents against 85 cents. Those are LSEG analyst averages.

ChargePoint does not own or run its chargers. It sells hardware, software and services to businesses, and has been working on service gaps in electric transit fleets.

A one-off tariff refund of about $4.2M helped the numbers. The company says normalised gross margin would still have set a record without it. It has not said when it expects to make a profit.

The losses have come down a long way. Net losses fell from $125.3M three years ago to $35.6M last quarter, and this was a fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth.

Guidance is more modest than the share move. The current quarter is $105M to $115M, roughly 4% growth at the midpoint, which is a long way short of seventy points.

The European part of the plan is the part with a law behind it. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation requires a 150kW charging point every 60km on the trans-European core network.

It also sets a fleet ratio. Member states must provide at least 1.3kW of public charging capacity for every registered battery-electric car, and 0.50kW for every plug-in hybrid.

Card payment at charging stations is mandatory under the same regulation, which applied from April 2024. BYD has been building flash charging stations against those rules.

ChargePoint is introducing its Level 3 high-performance chargers in Europe, alongside next-generation Level 2 and Level 3 units for the United States. Level 3 is broadly the hardware the regulation obliges someone to install.

Whether enough cars arrive to use it is the older question. TNW has called it the EU’s charging conundrum.

The American picture runs the other way. Federal support has gone, including the consumer credit worth up to $7,500, and nothing replaced it with an obligation.

Wilmer says the doom and gloom has been overstated. American electric vehicle sales have nonetheless been through a documented slowdown since that credit ended.