EVgo's Charging Results Are Sending a Message About EV Demand -- Barrons.com

Al Root

The first-quarter results from the electric-vehicle charging company EVgo show that while investors are fretting over demand, more EVs are on U.S. roads -- and their owners keep driving them hard.

Tuesday morning, EVgo reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of negative $7.2 million from sales of $55.2 million. Wall Street was looking for a $13 million loss from sales of $52.4 million.

Sales rose 118% from a year earlier as EVgo's charging network dispensed 53 gigawatt hours of power to EVs. That is 194% of the year-earlier total.

The company ended the quarter with about 3,200 stalls in operation, up about 38% from the same period a year earlier. The average amount of electricity delivered per stall in operation was about 17 megawatt hours, up almost 120% year over year.

The bottom line is that more EV drivers were pulling up to EVgo stalls more frequently.

"EVgo's business continues to grow and achieve record results, demonstrating the strength of our business model of owning and operating a fast-charging network as more Americans drive electric vehicles," said CEO Badar Khan in a news release. "The tailwind of long-term EV adoption gives us confidence that we will achieve adjusted Ebitda breakeven in 2025."

EVgo reaffirmed a forecast of an Ebitda loss of about $39 million from sales of about $245 million in 2024. Wall Street is projecting a loss of $40 million from sales of about $250 million.

EVgo shares were up 5.5% at $2.10 in early trading, while futures on the S&P 500 were flat. Nasdaq Composite futures were down 0.1%.

Coming into Tuesday's trading, EVgo shares were off about 44% year to date and down about 68% over the past 12 months. Slowing demand growth for EVs has weighed on investor sentiment.

U.S. sales of battery-electric vehicles grew just 3% year over year in the first quarter of 2024, according to Cox Automotive. Sales grew 40% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

EVgo's results are more a function of the total number of EVs on U.S. roads than quarterly sales of the cars. At the end of the first quarter, roughly 3.8 million all-electric vehicles were on U.S. roads, up from about 2.4 million at the end of 2022.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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May 07, 2024 08:39 ET (12:39 GMT)

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