Blink Charging Co. (BLNK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hey, everybody at LA Auto Show. This is a place to be. This is the 2022 Blink charging press conference. Gather around. We'll be starting in just one moment. All right, everybody. Hey, I know it's the end of the day. Thank you for sticking with us. How was the first day of the show so far? All right. I love it. Some people have some energy. All right. Well, we know we're the only thing keeping you before happy hour. So we will walk through this very quickly and hopefully give you lots of detailed information. Welcome. Again, this is Blink Charging. This is our 2022 press conference, where we're going to outline some new innovations here at Blink Charging. With me here, I have President, Brendan Jones, and I have Mike Battaglia, Senior Vice President, Business Development. So first, guys, I'd like to start off by asking Brendan, what's the state of the industry here in EV charging?

So the state of the industry for EVs is great. I don't think there's a more exciting time to be in this space. If we look where we've been and where we've come, look at the exciting cars you see here today in L.A., we're talking about cars that have 350, 400 miles of range, bigger batteries. We're talking about SUVs. We're talking about small, compact cars. We're talking about kickass sports cars. We've never had more product like this in the EV space in the history. And I consider myself one of the aged ones in this space back when we had a Nissan Leaf. We had a Chevy Volt. We had some other cars. Now look what we have today. The automotive companies, our hat is off to them. They've invested over $500 billion on new EV platforms. And what we have to do with Blink Charging and other infrastructure investments is we have to bring the charging out there to service these vehicles to make sure this EV revolution will continue and live into the future and be sustainable for years to come.

That's awesome. Lots of new stuff come in the way. So we have some new products here at Blink. Would you like to walk everyone through what some of those products are?

Sure. We want to start off by saying that Blink has been innovating for the last 3 to 4 years to be able to get ready for this EV revolution. So what you'll see today is just another part of that evolution of product. We came out in CES in Vegas last year and talked about 7 new products that are going to come out in the coming months and years. These are just a few of them, and we'll touch on some of them as we get through this. So the first one that is launching now is we started off our existence with an IQ 100, and that's actually one of the chargers how we got into the space. That was a very simple, not smart, we used to say dumb but now we say not smart, charger that you can install on your home in a very economical price. Now we're launching the HQ 200. So the HQ 200 is a 50-amp wall-mounted charger for your home space. This is 15118 capable. This charger has WiFi. This charger is mobile app driven. This charger is energy efficient. So this we describe as the high end. This is a no-compromise charger for your home use. And we have another new charger for home use that we're also introducing. And Mike?

Yes. Thanks, Brendan. So I'm standing next to the new Blink series 4 residential charging station, a little bit of a different form factor, a little bit more compact, also a little bit of a lower price point. So this is also a 50-amp charger capable of outputting 12 kilowatts, has a slightly thinner cable than the HQ 200. If you'd like 15118 or plug-and-charge connectivity, V2G, V2home, things like that, you're going to opt for the HQ 200. Again, series 4, brand-new charger, shipping soon.

So the idea of Blink, whether it's our services, whether it's our business models, is to make sure that we provide flexibility to the consumer. So with these 2 choices, a lower end at a lower price point, the high end at a higher price point, we give consumers a choice. Now let's move over to our next product entry. And this is our 30-kilowatt wall-mounted or pedestal-mounted DC fast charger. This is 100-amp charger that can be fit in almost any situation with little cost, less installation time frame than traditional DC fast charger. And also, if needed, we can add a power module to the back of this. We'll increase this to a wall-mounted 60-amp charger. This is one of the first of its kind to be introduced in the United States. And Mike, why don't you talk about where we plan on installing these?

Yes. Absolutely. So Brendan, we're super excited about this, charger on the sales side and the business development side, for a couple of reasons. Number one, this charger is 1,000 volts. So across the Blink DC fast charging line, we've standardized on 1,000 volts to make sure that our DC fast-charging products are future-proofed to sync with OEM vehicles that are coming out now and into the future. So we plan on selling and distributing this product primarily into our dealer partners across multiple OEM brands. So Blink has had tremendous success supporting dealers across the landscape, brands like General Motors and Honda and Ford and Jag Land Rover and Hyundai and Kia and the list goes on and on. So we continue -- we will continue to support them into 2023 with this brand-new 30-kilowatt charger.

And not to forget, as you walk through our booth, we have all of our different products. Our fleet and multifamily dwelling chargers are located on that side next to our 120 to 180-kilowatt DC fast charger that were on the market today. And that's the one we'll use for the NEVI project sponsored by the Biden administration for $5 billion and never to marginalize it. This has been our workhorse. This was the first commercial 19.2 high-output AC charger that was on the market. We continue to sell this one in volume. It wins records for both durability, for efficiency and for the output of the charger. As you can see, we kept with the form factor on our Blink HQ and this. And then when we look, what we don't see here today is our offerings in our European entities. We have an EQ charger, similar form factor that we're launching pretty soon to grow across Europe. So Rebecca?

Thank you, guys. That was awesome. Thank you, Mike and Brendan. So there's a lot of growth in the industry. Clearly, that's evident at this show. What do you think? What's propelling this growth? And what's going to keep it moving forward?

So the growth is being propelled by innovation and by need. Clearly, electric vehicles are good for the environment. Clearly, electric vehicles create high-tech jobs in the United States. Chargers create high-tech jobs. Then when we look at the energy, the energy needed to power these vehicles and these charges, it's all domestically produced. So then we get energy independence. So this revolution has been driven by technology, for need for a cleaner environment. And I'll give you this thought before we end with one more little secret product introduction here. If we go back and we think to what L.A. looked like during the pandemic, and I don't know if any of you remember, but we saw pictures of Los Angeles. And you can see from the mountains all the way to the sea, the air was cleaner than many people who live here said they saw in their lifetime, here in Los Angeles. Now that was from the pandemic. Now think about that now. We have the ability to achieve that on a permanent basis. All the smog that was in those pre pictures was as a result of tail pipe emissions. With electric vehicles, with the mass production, with the infrastructure support, we can make that a sustainable reality. Think about it. Everybody involved in this space, we're changing the world one vehicle and one charger at a time. Now for the last part, we want to introduce you to our brand-new design. The design has already been approved. The final concept is going through technical review, and then it will go into production here in the United States and a brand-new factory that Blink made an announcement with 3 weeks ago with the Secretary of Labor that we're going to be building within the United States. We'll have a further announcement later in this quarter, at the beginning of the next on the exact location of that factory. So this is 180-kilowatt stand-alone. So what it means by a stand-alone, it's not a dispenser. This is an actual all-in-one charger. This will be able to charge most vehicles out there today with an easy install factor, an easy cost of maintenance, a modular design. When we get to higher power charger, we're simply reducing the form factor into a dispenser for 350 kilowatt and above. And what we want to end with is this, is we continue to innovate. We're going to continue to bring out new products. Some of you may know, we just launched a brand-new network and talked about that about 60 days ago. That's a state-of-the-art, brand-new technology stack. That technology stack will be the underpinning of all of our products on a global level, not just in the United States, this charger, other chargers that will be launched at a future date. So Blink is becoming a transformative company. Just 2.5 years ago, 40 employees. Today, we're almost 600. We're growing. We're going to grow with the space. And now I think we can open up to questions.

That's awesome. So what we're going to do is if you guys have any questions, we invite you to come see the equipment firsthand. Speak to Brendan. Speak to our team on site. And we're happy to answer any questions you have or provide any additional information. Thanks again for attending. We hope you have a fantastic show.

If anybody wants to come up and answer -- ask some questions, you're free to do that now.

I was just wondering how much that home charger is. $749. Thank you.

Thank you, [ Kitty ].

So when you say stand-alone versus dispenser, are you referring to having a separate transformer than from the charger?

So we commonly refer to it as a 2-step or a 3-step installation process. So DC fast chargers between the speed of about 50 up to, say, 120, they can be a stand-alone charger. All the power modules are in there. When you start getting past 150 or 200, you need what's called a dispenser, and then the power modules are behind. So you have a power pad that has the power modules and the transformer and the switchgear on one. On a charger like this, the only thing you can have on the power pad is the transformer and if you need switchgear. So it reduces the space needed when you move that up to 150 considerably.

Yes. Go ahead.

Tesla recently announced that they were opening up their charger standard to everybody. Does that change your plans at all?

No, not at all. And we applaud Tesla for becoming more open. And in any situation, Blink will work with Tesla to make sure we have compatibility. We'll wait and see how open the charges are to non-Tesla drivers. I think it's a great experiment. But we're going to wait and see. We applaud the effort, and we'll work with them every step of the way.

Go ahead.

So we often see on Electrify America that there's 2 ports, but you can always use only one. On your design, you have 2.

Yes. So we're going to do charging that can be multifaceted at this, so you can charge 2 vehicles simultaneously out of that. So the thought with this charger is still put it at the center between 2 spots. And that way, you can charge 2 vehicles simultaneously at max power. Yes?

Do we have a question back here?

Yes. Is Blink -- do you have any plans to partner with grid-tied battery services to offset, say, demand fees and charges on your DC fast charger implementations?

Yes, absolutely. So we're in the midst of completing 2 projects right now. One is in Philadelphia, which is a mass display of batteries, solar and charging for a Philadelphia funded project to see the benefits of that type of configuration. We're also right now installing in Florida, 25 sites, high-power charging combined with battery and solar combined together. Now that's both for demand mitigation and also for resiliency because in Florida, like any other place, you got hurricanes, and the wind goes out. And so we're testing these charges with the state of Florida to make sure that we have a way to charge electric vehicles even if the next hurricane wipes out all the power grid.

Okay. One more question over here.

So for a variety of car companies right now with the electric car, they have their own charging system. For instance, the Hyundai and has the Hyundai Home and then the...

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to move up because my hearing is bad, not you.

I'm sorry. And then the Lucid has their Wunderbox as our personal charging system. How would you rate your advantages by competing with other cars' charging stations like the...

So the questions about -- for those watching on the live stream, about home charging and the OEMs having their own home charging solutions.

Yes. So we will supplement the market. Where an OEM provides a charger, we'll provide a choice. And where consumers want to go online, whether it's Amazon, et cetera, if they buy a Lucid and they don't buy the Lucid charger that goes with the vehicle, we want to make sure that they have a choice to look at other competitive product. And having done this for a long time, the one thing we know is you can't force consumers to buy a particular charger because most especially EV consumers are very discerning. Don't take away their choice. If you take away their choice, they might not buy yours, and they're going to definitely go out and look for something out. That's just the American mentality. So our job at Blink is to provide those options to the consumer regardless of what brand of vehicle they buy.

Anyone else have any additional questions here? Okay.

So one of the questions from the live chat was what OEMs is Blink working with right now?

So right now, Blink services a variety of OEMs, and these are primarily in dealership installations. So our chargers are being installed at GM dealerships, at Audi dealerships, at Subaru dealerships, at Ford dealerships, at Honda dealership. And Mike, did I miss one? Because the list goes on. And where is Mike? Mike, did I miss a dealership? Well, we'll get to Mike later. He's over there having a conversation. And we are in negotiations with several OEMs on both dealership and in home charging right now. So we continue to expand that book of business, and it's one of our growing and most profitable businesses today.

Another question from the chat is where -- when can they start ordering the home charger?

Say that again?

The HQ 200, when...

So the HQ 200 is available on sale today. So they can go -- what was that, Mike, again? Because I didn't hear you. It's on Best Buy today and soon to be on Amazon later on. Did I forget the website? Oh, right, blinkcharging.com. Thank you very much. I should know that as the President, right? That's it?

I think we're all out of questions. Last chance, guys. Thank you again. Have a wonderful Auto Show.

Well, thank you, everyone. Everybody, have a great day.