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The electric vehicle charger supplier backed by EDF and Legal & General warned that weak retail demand for electric vehicles in the UK would hit annual revenues, sending shares down almost 40 percent on Monday morning.
Pod Point, which is majority-owned by EDF and whose shareholders include Legal & General, Schroders and Hargreaves Lansdown, said on Monday that a “challenging backdrop”, including “short-term uncertainty” in the UK electric vehicle market, was to blame for the annual results which he predicted would be below current market expectations.
The company said a government consultation launched late last year on UK targets for electric vehicle sales had added to that uncertainty. The consultation follows complaints from carmakers that sales of electric vehicles are not growing fast enough to meet quotas.
Britain’s electric vehicle quota scheme, also launched last year, requires 80 percent of cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by the end of the decade, with the percentage rising from 22 percent in 2024.
New electric vehicle registrations jumped 21 percent to a record 382,000 last year, with the UK narrowly overtaking Germany as Europe’s biggest market for battery-powered cars for the first time.
However, discounts on EVs attract buyers reluctant the switch from petrol vehicles has cost car manufacturers billions of pounds. Also, trade group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) warned that demand had not grown “as expected”.
SMMT flagged relatively weak sales among private buyers compared to businesses, with only one in 10 UK private buyers choosing an EV in 2024 according to their analysis.
Pod Point said on Monday that “continued weakness in the private new car segment of the EV market” was affecting trading. As a result, the group said it expects revenues of £53m for the latest financial year, down from previous guidance of around £60m.
It added that its net cash had fallen to £5.3m by the end of December, well below previous guidance of around £15m.
Melanie Lane, chief executive of Pod Point, who previously worked for Shell, said the company had “made good progress on our costs” in 2024, “but a weaker-than-expected private EV market had a negative impact on revenues”. In April, she should announce the results for the whole year.
Shares fell more than 38 per cent in early trading to 10.30p. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in November 2021.
Pod Point sells filling stations for home and workplaces. In its latest results covering the six months to the end of June, the group reported sales of £28.1m and said it had 242,000 devices installed across the UK.
Drivers’ concerns about lack of charging and higher initial costs for many electric vehicle models are among the factors holding back the transition in the UK, experts say.
In a statement this morning, Pod Point added that EDF remained a “very supportive shareholder”.
Additional reporting by Kana Inagaki
