Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Finally, charge Point is announcing the EV industry's first cut
Speaker 2: resistant charging cable, as well as an alarm system that's
Speaker 2: as it attempts to deter theft and vandalism. It expects
Speaker 2: the cables to be available for licensed by the middle
Speaker 2: of this year and joining us now to talk more
Speaker 2: about that as charge Points CEO Rick Wilmer. Rick, great
Speaker 2: to get you on the program. I want to ask
Speaker 2: how big of a problem this was in the first place.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know a lot of people are disappointing
Speaker 2: when they pull up to an EV charger and it
Speaker 2: doesn't work. Is that happening a lot more often? And
Speaker 2: is it due to vandalism?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely has been a problem that has been
Speaker 3: pervasive and getting worse. I think the rumor out there
Speaker 3: is that as copper prices go up, thieves believe they
Speaker 3: can make money stealing charging cables and taking them into
Speaker 3: recycling centers. And seen hundreds and hundreds of chargers get vandalized,
Speaker 3: and I bet industry wide it's in the thousands. Seems
Speaker 3: to be concentrated in different areas. It surges in certain
Speaker 3: parts of the country and then builds up again in
Speaker 3: another part of the country. We've also seen it with
Speaker 3: some of our customers in Europe where they've got charging
Speaker 3: cables of chests to chargers. So it's been a real problem.
Speaker 3: It's been very frustrating.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: One reason the vandalism exists also is to get access
Speaker 1: to that copper that's underneath the surface there. And I
Speaker 1: want to pull it back to the price of copper
Speaker 1: because interestingly enough, it has been back on the rise
Speaker 1: after a fairly steep decline at the end of last year.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what this means for you in terms of pricing,
Speaker 1: in terms of what your inputs are costing right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, good question.
Speaker 3: But quite frankly, the cost of copper as part of
Speaker 3: the overall cost of a charging station is not all
Speaker 3: that significant. And I think a lot of the thieves
Speaker 3: aren't that intelligent, and you know, here a rumor or
Speaker 3: see something that makes them think they can make money,
Speaker 3: and it turns out there's just not that much value there.
Speaker 5: I want to talk a little bit more about reliability.
Speaker 5: Of course, if your chargers are being vandalized, that would
Speaker 5: be a point of reliability becoming an issue. But let's
Speaker 5: also talk about software, like Matt mentioned, making sure that
Speaker 5: these chargers work every single time for all types of evs.
Speaker 5: How much time do you spend on the software making
Speaker 5: sure that that actually is the case.
Speaker 3: That is our single biggest area of investment in innovation.
Speaker 3: Like many other industries, software is going to eat the
Speaker 3: world at EV charging, So we spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time not only making charging reliable through software making it
Speaker 3: easy to find, use and pay for charging, but also
Speaker 3: to develop all kinds of interesting new features that our
Speaker 3: customers can take advantage of to not only drive utilization
Speaker 3: of charging at their institutions, but also to drive their
Speaker 3: poor business.
Speaker 4: Rick, I wonder about EV growth.
Speaker 2: There had been clearly a big backlash, and with Donald
Speaker 2: Trump coming into office, you may think, well, he's going to,
Speaker 2: you know, remove the credit and slow EV sales even further.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, Elon Musk has purchased himself a
Speaker 2: place at the table here.
Speaker 4: Do you expect EV growth to pick up.
Speaker 2: Again or is it going to continue to slow in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think it's going to slow at all.
Speaker 3: In fact, Bloomberg New Energy just forecasted earlier this week
Speaker 3: twenty eight percent growth for EV's in North America this
Speaker 3: year and thirty three percent in Europe. And I think
Speaker 3: what's really driving that and it overcomes you know, government
Speaker 3: incentives or lack of is really market forces. And I
Speaker 3: think what's held EV's back in the past on one
Speaker 3: side of the equations just the lack of selection of vehicles.
Speaker 3: So we're going to see dozens of new EV models
Speaker 3: introduced this year, you know, different types of vehicles, lower
Speaker 3: price points, and I think that's really going to help adoption.
Speaker 3: And then on the charging side, you know, we continue
Speaker 3: to grow our networks, we continue to deploy more chargers
Speaker 3: and innovations like we announced today around making chargers more reliable,
Speaker 3: but preventing vandalism is going to help the other side
Speaker 3: of the equation, you know, where drivers are concerned about
Speaker 3: finding a charger and when they do find one, making
Speaker 3: sure that it works.
Speaker 2: Is it possible, Well, I mean it's possible to charge
Speaker 2: Tesla at charge point station, But do you have a
Speaker 2: significant number of Tesla owners charging at your stations?
Speaker 4: Yes, a lot.
Speaker 3: If you walk into our parking lot, there's probably more
Speaker 3: Tesla's out here charging than there are any other makeup vehicle,
Speaker 3: just because they're so prevalent on the road.
Speaker 1: What do you think this means for Tesla? You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are talking about Elon Musk's closeness
Speaker 1: to the President elect at the moment. Do you think
Speaker 1: that that's going to give him an advantage relative to
Speaker 1: other ED companies out there, especially because they're already very
Speaker 1: much in the lead when you think about the standalone
Speaker 1: D companies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 4: Hard to know.
Speaker 3: I really believe that what drives EV sales is the
Speaker 3: superiority of an electric vehicle versus an internal combustion vehicle.
Speaker 3: And again, like you mentioned earlier, as more models become
Speaker 3: available that meet the needs of different types of drivers,
Speaker 3: that require different kinds of vehicles, and at a variety
Speaker 3: of price points, the market's going to grow. I think
Speaker 3: they're just a superior product to the internal combustion vehicle.
Speaker 4: Rick.
Speaker 2: As you know, I have a podcast called Hot Pursuit
Speaker 2: with Hannah Elliott where we talk basically about our love
Speaker 2: for cars, and there's some exciting evs coming out. I
Speaker 2: think Hannah's going to drive a Porsche Macon EV next week.
Speaker 4: What are you.
Speaker 2: Most excited about in terms of product offering in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 3: Wow, there's so much coming. I think the Mcon is
Speaker 3: an exciting vehicle. I'm excited to see some of the
Speaker 3: Slantis vehicles come out. There's just a lot coming that
Speaker 3: I'm excited about. By the way, Matt big fan of
Speaker 3: the podcast. I listened to that pretty regularly.
Speaker 4: Well, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Rick, thanks so much for joining us on Bloomberg Television
Speaker 2: as well. Charge Points CEO Rick Wilmer. For more on
Speaker 2: all things auto. Go ahead and check out my podcast
Speaker 2: with Hannah Elliott. It is called Hot Pursuit and you
Speaker 2: can get it on Bloomberg dot com or anywhere you
Speaker 2: get your podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll be listening to the Maccon episode. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: car I want.