Australian EV charging network provider Evie Networks says it has been forced to make around 30 staff redundant, mostly in its depot and home charging business, saying the market is yet to develop.
Evie Networks chief executive officer Chris Mills says the redundancies announced this week has been an “incredibly hard decision”, but said that after an initial burst the market for depot charging for fleet operators and corporates had failed to develop.
“The market is just not there,” Mills told The Driven on Friday. “There has been not much of a follow on from corporates after an initial bump. It’s just not where it needs to be for us to absorb costs.”
Mills says the home charging market has also proven tough because of intense competition. Evie had offered vouchers for its fast charging network to customers that installed its home charging equipment, but could not gain a significant share of the market.
“Home charging is a pretty competitive field,” he said. “There is very little barrier to entry. Gee whizz, you can buy a cheap home EV charging box nowadays.”
Mills is still optimistic about the future of the EV industry, and the company’s fast charger business remains unaffected – despite the woes of its sister company Tritium, the EV charger manufacturer also backed by Trevor St Baker that fell into receivership and was sold late last week.
But Mills says that FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – has had an impact on the market, particularly after the introduction of the federal government’s vehicle emissions standards.
“We’re on the precipice of a big change, but there is an enormous amount of FUD. Those people who have been anti-EV have ramped up their rhetoric. That has had its impact,” Mills said.
“We just found that both those lines of product were not going to get to where they need to be. We couldn’t see it happen for 18 months to 2 years. They were carrying too much costs, and diverting money from the fast charger business.
He said the employees affected by the redundancies had been incredibly professional. “This one was a gut punch, but I can not fault their professionalism, the way they took the news and the way they reacted to it. ”
The Driven understands 32 staff – out of about 100 – were affected by the cuts.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.