Fastned B.V. (FAST.AS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Fastned Q1 2025 Trading Update Call. My name is Karen, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to your host, Michiel Langezaal, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you, operator. And I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone on this call as well as to those joining via our webcast. You can find a copy of the presentation used during this call on our Investor Relations website found at ir.fastnedcharging.com. On the title page, our new station in Brescia, Italy, our first station in Italy and a proud moment for Fastned as we now have operations in 8 countries. We opened the station in February with a ceremony on a beautiful sunny day attended by dozens of our guests, partners and very interested government officials, a good reason to celebrate. This high-value location is on a key highway stretching from Milan to Venice and is in Italy's most EV dense region, all part of our strategy to continue expanding and bringing the best fast charging experience to everyone in Europe. I'll speak more about this later on. Slide 2, please. With reference to the information provided in these slides and discussed during this call, please ensure you take note of the disclaimer. Moving to Slide 3. My name is Michiel Langezaal. I'm the CEO and one of the founders of Fastned. Victor Van Dijk, our CFO, is with me on this call. And together, we will present this webcast. Today, I will take you through the highlights for Fastned during the first quarter of 2025, with amongst other things, our latest headline results and an update on network growth. We will also discuss the EV market more broadly to provide insights into how we see market conditions evolving and give our view on market sentiment as sales begin accelerating rapidly in Europe once again. Following this, Victor will present the 2024 financial results, which were also recently published in our annual report for 2024 available on our website. After our presentation, we will be happy to answer your questions. If possible, please limit them to 2 questions per analyst so we can give everybody the opportunity. We've scheduled this call to last for 1 hour. So let's get started. The following slide presents the highlights of the first quarter for 2025. For the EV market, Q1 this year seemed to mark a return to full speed ahead. And for Fastned, once again, I'm pleased to report strong growth with several all-time highs in our quarterly results. Across the board, we have seen significant increases in our key operational metrics from energy sold to quarterly revenue. Q1 showed a 48% year-on-year increase in revenue to a total of EUR 28 million for the quarter. EV stock grew 27% this quarter in comparison to the same quarter last year. Fastned outgrew this and captured more than its fair share of growth with sessions growing 27%, energy delivered 34% and revenue by a whopping 48%. And maybe to put this into context to the very few other charging companies that make their performance available, Recharge, which is active in the Nordics, last year sold almost 92 gigawatt hour with some 4,000 EVCs according to their report. Fastned sold some 50% more energy with significantly less chargers despite being in a market which does not yet have the far majority of car sales being electric. That is the power of a great concept and great locations. This revenue growth also drove gross profit, which was up 31% from last year to EUR 19.7 million. Strong demand for bonds continued to fund our rollout pace with Fastned raising a record EUR 36 million in its issue in the first quarter of this year. And as a consequence, our cash position remained strong at EUR 113 million at the end of the quarter. To be honest, I feel that we're now past the second phase of the EV revolution and we have moved into a new chapter. Despite some exaggerated negative market sentiment last year, a corner has clearly been turned. New regulations and new technologies are accelerating mass adoption with sales surging, just as we anticipated when referencing the Osborne effect. As a result, Fastned is selling more clean energy to more drivers than ever, empowering our expansion across Europe. Talking about network growth, our network continues to expand. We opened 7 new Fastned stations in Q1, which brings us to a total of 353 stations in operation today. In 2025, we're adding 2 new countries to the list, Spain and Italy, and our teams have been working hard to set-up our supply chains in these countries. The work has already produced tangible results with our first station in Italy opening. And soon, we expect Spain to go live as well. It is these first as well as the establishment of shop that represents a true 0 to 1 effort. For the rest of the year, our focus will shift fully to scaling the number of sites these supply chains are designed to support. As we expand our network and enter new markets, we are placing strong emphasis on scaling our quality to match. We don't just want to do more charging, we want to do the best charging and we want to do it at scale. And therefore, I'm delighted that we've continued to be placed in leading positions for customer satisfaction in our key markets. I'm proud we have continued to deliver the same or even higher reliability to our customers. It is this commitment to excellence of service that continues to ensure that drivers keep coming back and it makes Fastned one of the most trusted charging brands on the market. Location is fundamental to our strategy. We build our stations on high-value, high-traffic sites with the aim of securing long-term contracts that provide the best business case. Continuing to secure these high-value locations is vital for our growth. And in Q1, we secured 20 more locations for development, all single site acquisitions. There were no large-scale tenders adding scale to this number during this quarter. Our target is 1,000 stations open across Europe by 2030. We're more than halfway there as we have so far secured 587 locations for development. Moving on to station performance. Energy delivered per station grew slightly below BEV fleet growth with 17% to 488 megawatt hour annualized. The revenue per station amounted to an annualized EUR 325,000, which translates to 29% growth compared to the same period last year, showing that revenue grew significantly faster than energy delivered and the fleet growth. Note too that with significant growth ahead of us in the coming quarters, we have already hit our station revenue target for 2025 this quarter, a development that is partly a consequence of Fastned increasing prices in most of its markets at the start of the year. Then finally, I would like to briefly address the current developments in global trade. We have assessed our business and supply chains and have found no material impact. Logically, like many businesses, we run our daily office operations on services like Google Workspace, but no material exposures were found. On a positive note, I would like to mention that we are significantly exposed to the countermeasures Europe is taking when it comes to energy sovereignty and energy security. Electric cars are seen as a large part of the solution. And thus, it is also not a surprise to see the commission staying strong on its 2035 target of all car sales being electric. In summary, these highlights all show very significant year-on-year growth across the board from stations to revenue to profitability. Last year, Fastned showed we could maintain growth through uncertain times, and now the market is firing again. As you can imagine, I'm very enthusiastic about the coming quarters. And it's worth taking a look at the facts behind the sentiment. Moving on to the next slide, and that starts with electric car sales. After a growth slowdown last year, we now see things ramping up fast. As you can see in this overview, across all markets, EV sales are increasing at very serious growth levels. Although many did not expect this market swing with hindsight, it is quite obvious. Europe's CO2 emission regulations followed a staggered approach in which CO2 emissions are brought down step-by-step over 5-year periods. The carmakers aligned go-to-market strategy accordingly, which led to newer, more affordable EVs coming to market this year and not last year. Similar to other technology markets, the automotive industry has now been impacted by the Osborne effect, as we mentioned earlier. Just to recap, this is the phenomenon whereby the announcement of new and more advanced products can significantly reduce the sales of the current offerings as consumers wait for the newer and better versions to become available. And in turn, when these products become available, it leads to a very serious uplift in the sales of these new products. Well, all of this is happening as we speak. In this slide, I would also like to mention the role of the recent discussions in Brussels on the 2035 automotive road map. We have all seen the considerable lobbying efforts of the carmakers and many expected a watering down of the targets. Given this, we understand the commission's decision to provide some flexibility within the targets. However, at the same time, we are very happy to see the EU remaining firm on the targets themselves. I will here quote some interesting paragraphs from the speech from the Commission's President von der Leyen. "The second topic that we have discussed was the transition towards clean mobility. There is a clear demand for more flexibility on the CO2 targets. The key principle here is balance. On the one hand, we need predictability and fairness for the first movers, those who did their homework successfully. That means we have to stick to the agreed targets. To address this in a balanced manner, I will propose a focused amendment to the CO2 standards regulation this month. Instead of annual compliance, companies will get 3 years. The targets stay the same." The implementation of the flexibility is calculated by averaging fleet emissions over a 3-year period from 2025 to 2027. For Fastned, this means that a certain portion of the EVs will reach Europe's roads some months later than originally planned for. But importantly, they will reach our roads. Also, the commission is working on a proposal for green fleets to spark demand. More about this later in our presentation. In summary, we're seeing EV sales picking up once again with further demand acceleration on the horizon. So let's now talk about technology development. Slide 5, please. I was impressed by how many people asked us about the announcement by BYD about 5-minute 1 megawatt charging. First of all, as an engineer who has been active in e-mobility since the early days, I find it interesting to see how many people are still amazed to see electric vehicle technology not being stagnant. In contrast to what they're used to from the internal combustion engine, our industry, like that of solar panels or digital cameras, continues to amaze people. Technology development year-on-year removes barriers from charging time to range to vehicle weight to rare earth materials to charging in cold temperatures, and the list goes on and on and on. Charging times of 5 minutes is something we expected to happen. We have been planning for this since founding the company in 2012. Let me tell you a little bit about how we think this will impact our industry and Fastned. First of all, it is a great development for electric drivers. The decision to buy a car is about freedom, the freedom to drive anywhere. And the benchmark is a fossil car with ample range and quick refueling and long charging times are a bottleneck to mass adoption for electric vehicles. In this context, the introduction of 5-minute charging is a great development as it signals the next acceleration phase for electric vehicles, further scaling of our market. For Fastned, it is also a very positive and important development. On balance, it will make fast charging more attractive than slow charging. For example, think about those people living in apartment buildings or for whom installing a Wallbox next to their car means digging a long trench. For those people, 5-minute fast charging could just mean continuing their refueling behavior. So next to scaling the market, it will shift the balance in market volume from AC towards DC fast charging. So faster charging is great for the market and should increase sales at our charging stations. But how about the business case for this technology? Here, we see the following happening. When thinking about 2030 or beyond, there will be so many EVs on the market that charging stations in good locations like ours will need to cater for hundreds of cars a day. When each car takes 20 minutes to charge, the size of the station and the plot needed to accommodate all these cars while charging becomes quite significant, if not very large. This is not a theoretical problem, but a real one, especially in densely populated urban areas and the roads surrounding the big cities. Charging faster means shorter overstays. And this allows volumes to grow without congestion on the stations, starting to cause havoc. Economically, this means we improve the utilization of the land we lease and the investments we make to realize the infrastructure. Put simply, we need less street work to cater to these hundreds of customers. Knowing that around 50% of the investments in stations are related to civil works, canopy and so on, you can imagine the improvement in ROI. You might think, but do you now need an outsized grid connection for such high power levels? Well, the answer is a bit yes and no. We do need a serious connection. But whether we have a connection of 3 megawatts to power 20 EVCs charging at levels of up to 300 kilowatts for 20-minute time spans or we have the same connection powering 6-megawatt chargers. This does not change much as both deliver the same number of kilowatt hour to EV drivers each day. When looking at the solar market, we know that the larger the inverters become, the lower the price per kilowatt. So we do expect some synergies in megawatt charging versus many lower power chargers. And on that note, I would like to hand you over to Victor Van Dijk, our CFO, for his part of the presentation.

Yes. Thank you, Michiel. In Q1, we published our annual report. And let me take you through the highlights on this slide. Despite slower growth in EV sales in 2024, we have seen strong organic and inorganic revenue growth at Fastned last year. We have 2 big growth axis. One is growth at existing stations that benefit from an ever-increasing EV fleet and an increasing recurring charging demand. The other is opening new stations on high-traffic locations that quickly ramp up sales. I'll talk about those in the next slide in a moment. We are seeing network operating costs increasing, mainly due to increased grid fees and expanding our organization in our large non-Dutch markets to cater for network growth. See more detail on this on Slide 18 in the appendix. In the end, the business case at full utilization and at higher charge speeds can more than carry these costs. Prices can go down even while maintaining similar operational EBITDA margins. So cost increases will in the end mean that prices go down less than anticipated, that is prices to the customer. Of course, we are diligent in keeping costs as low as possible so we can offer lower prices to the customers in the end. We've increased the network expansion teams. They are signing new locations with high traffic counts, long lease length, and therefore, great business cases and great IRRs. So that is a very valuable cost investment. We've had a step change in signing these locations last year. We signed 138. Now we are ramping up the organization this year and next year to build those stations at the same pace as signing them. This leads to increased network expansion costs. But as said, this is a very valuable cost investment and it will yield over the next 15 to 30 years that the station is operational. Note that without these expansion costs, we will be near net profitable already with network expansion costs close to our negative profit, which brings me to the next slide. Our business case depends on there being electric cars on the road for us to charge. The good news is that consistent long-term growth in the EV market is the reality and that growth is set to increase again after slowing in growth last year. As said before, Fastned sales grow along 2 main axes. One is the increasing sales per station on existing locations. The other is building new locations that generally quickly ramp up sales to the average station revenue level. The first axis you see on the left, we build stations on locations with 30,000 vehicles passing by per day. In 2019, just pre-COVID, 0.9% of these vehicles were electric, so less than 300, generating just EUR 46,000 revenues per station. Then with more and more of the 30,000 cars becoming electric, reflected in BEV fleet penetration going up, station revenues ramp up. With BEV fleet penetration expected to almost quadruple in the next 6 years, we expect station revenues to go up to more than EUR 1 million per station by 2030. This means that on our existing 350 stations, we expect EUR 350 million revenues for 2030. On the right graph, you can see that we obviously add stations also with 30,000 traffic. So they quickly ramp up to the average station. With the 587 locations already secured, including the operational station, we expect close to EUR 600 million revenues for 2030 on those stations. Then we are signing more than 100 locations per year each year right now. These 100 stations will add EUR 100 million revenues in 2030 as well. So that is why the network expansion costs associated with adding these stations is a very valuable investment. All this is a promise we've been making for years. Our business case becomes more compelling as more and more electric vehicles hit our roads. Combined with our charging concepts, highly profitable at the right level of EV adoption, this ensures we continue to grow alongside and even quicker than the market we're operating in. Next slide, please. Then a view of profitability. By now, we are underlying EBIT positive in the Netherlands and are near that in Belgium. We reached this milestone first in the Netherlands and Belgium because BEV fleet penetration is the highest in these markets. Fleet penetration drives revenues and gross profit, which drives profitability. In the graph on the left, you can see that fleet penetration in key markets reached similar levels as in the Netherlands in the next few years. So we expect those margins to reach positive EBIT as well in the next few years. And of course, profitability in the Netherlands and Belgium will continue to grow. But this shows a clear path to profitability for Fastned. Next slide, please. Station economics continue to trend well. Organic sales grows, so sales on stations that were already operational in the previous period grew by 22% year-on-year, almost in line with BEV fleet penetration. So the relation to BEV fleet penetration growth I showed 2 slides back holds. We have some seasonality in energy costs and energy tax, which affected gross margin and operational EBITDA margin this quarter despite increasing our sales prices. This I'll explain on the next slide in a moment. As always, we are not planning for high utilization at this stage. Getting higher utilization would be very easy. Just build smaller stations with less chargers and don't expand our existing stations, then utilization quickly ramps up. However, we know that the BEV fleets will double over the next 2 to 3 years, which will double demand over the next 2 to 3 years. With such steep demand growth, we are catering for that demand and accept a lower than optimal utilization right now to be able to welcome more customers and generate more revenue in the next 2 to 3 years. It is good to note that Fastned utilization is roughly 2x higher than the average market utilization, as also referenced to by Michiel in his reference to Recharge in the Nordics. Then on the next slide, briefly on operational EBITDA margin. Our guidance is 35% to 40% for the year and we are at 31% in Q1. This is due to seasonally high electricity prices in Q1, causing cost of goods sold to be EUR 0.045 higher than the average in 2024, which has a 7 percentage point impact on the operational EBITDA margin in Q1. This impact is expected to reduce considerably with forward prices indicating lower energy prices. And if energy prices don't go down in line with this, we obviously have the flexibility to increase our sales prices if needed. Electricity taxes in the Netherlands increased from 1 January. Energy tax was always higher in the first quarter due to how the energy tax works. This Q1 effect increases with this tax change for 1 January. Also, over the full year, there is an impact. We expect energy taxes to be circa EUR 0.01 to EUR 0.02 higher than before given an impact of 2% to 3% on operational EBITDA margin. As such, we continue to expect operational EBITDA margin to be between 35% and 40% in 2025. Note that this is before any positive EBITDA effect from the German highway tender. Let me now hand you back over to Michiel.

Thanks, Victor. Yes, you might have read about the Spark Alliance in the news, an initiative we launched this quarter. Moving to Slide 11. Let me touch upon what I think is important to know about this. Firstly, it starts with the problem we're trying to solve. Although many actors worked hard on building charging infrastructure, for the EV driver, the charging market is a maze; chargers with low power that often malfunction, stations with only few chargers and limited availability, too many apps with too many charge cards. This is a problem for the acceleration of EV adoption and Spark Alliance solves this problem by bringing together the networks of IONITY, Fastned, Electra and Atlante. Soon, through their favorite charging app, EV drivers can charge simply everywhere in Europe without the fear of being brought to a charger with red tape around it. These parties are the gold standard in our industry. And why does it make sense for our companies to do this? Well, first of all, because the growth of our industry and the success of our individual companies are intertwined. Secondly, we think there's a loyalty aspect to quality. Time again and again, customer research shows that the reliability is a key decision criterion for EV drivers. And thirdly, it allows us to lift our network out of the crowd through mental availability, but also digitally through online and in-car navigation. Spark Alliance is a unique development in our industry, which will be instrumental in shaping Europe's charging market, which brings me to talking a bit about how we look ahead. Moving on to Slide 12. 6 stories, 6 developments, which I think are important to follow. These are new shaping forces in the near future. Germany, on the bottom left, Europe's automotive heart. Last year, we witnessed intense debates over the 2035 automotive road map and mounting pressures from unions. The closing and repurposing of factories became a pressing issue, an undeniable signal of the deep transformations underway. And amid these tensions, Europe has not turned a blind eye to the challenges. On the contrary, they recognize that standing still would only deepen the crisis. The only viable path to keep Europe's automotive sector competitive on the global stage is to embrace electrification. Europe has, along with the automotive CEOs, decided the 2030 and 2035 targets stand and will not move. Early this year, Germany voted for a new government. Their plans are now shaping up and a lot needs to be done. Germany was one of Europe's laggards in EV adoption. The new coalition -- the plans from a new coalition are clearly aimed at accelerating that demand. Long-term tax incentives for private vehicles as well as for company cars are on the table now. On the bottom right of the slide, we're also mentioning green fleets. This is a topic we are following closely. As part of the automotive dialogue, the EU recognized the need for the demand for EVs to be there in order to make the transition being a success. The next step is a proposal on greening of corporate fleets by the commission. We think this could very well be the basis for the acceleration of demand across the EU. Why? Because we know from experience in the Netherlands and Belgium, how well incentives on green company fleets can work. About Fastned and especially on the pace of station construction. Over the last year, we've worked hard to make a step change in the speed of location acquisition from some 50 sites per year to more than 100. This is where I dedicated a lot of my time to, and it worked, and we will continue to work on increasing it. Now we are stepping up the pace of construction from, again, some 50 or so sites a year to more than 100. This has proven far from easy. As a consequence of our growth ambitions to tackle the top 10% of locations, we introduced a significant level of complexity. Our aim for 8-plus locations has led to a portfolio of locations with diverse backgrounds, ranging from inner city sites to privately owned plots across 8 jurisdictions, each with its own specific regulations. As you can imagine, one could just call a general contractor and get the first site in the country built. But that is not what we're after. We want a supply chain that builds station after station at very competitive cost and quality levels. So we're fighting on 4 axes at the moment. For permitting, it is about the ability to manage permits at scale across 8 jurisdictions. For construction and procurement, it is about putting in place a supply chain of parties that can deliver at scale and pace in all the countries we're after. It is about improving and continuing to deliver quality and it is about keeping CapEx under control. To deliver on these challenges, we have last year, next to continuing to scale our teams in the fields, already been setting up special teams on quality, operational excellence and process and systems improvement with more on the horizon, such as more dedicated procurement. Just to note, the difference between a successful charging company and others will be in the quality of the concept, the station and the location. So we see these investments to tackle the bottleneck of complexity as very worthwhile. On the time line, it took 2 years to get the network development speed up to make that step change. We expect the same for construction, a tough challenge. But I think when we look back, it is the charging companies with a great charging concept that acquire and build great locations at pace, that by doing so, have claimed that long-lasting position in the future EUR 100 billion or so charging market. Expanding our network across Europe also brings me to our commercial efforts, which we mentioned on the right side of this slide, bringing a leading charging brand in the Netherlands to the rest of Europe. And with step-by-step our networks in the rest of Europe becoming more present, we are now also aiming to make efforts to increase awareness for Fastned. The goal here, lifting a quality charging experience out of the crowd and develop a preference with EV drivers. Moreover, creating visibility and awareness for our charging network should support the acceleration of EV adoption. As you can imagine, within the past, having only a few stations in the country, such marketing efforts do not deliver returns. But now having surpassed the EUR 100 million revenue marker and with country by country seeing network density increasing, puts us in a unique position to start such activities to further boost sales and accelerate EV adoption. All in all, I'm very positive about what is to come. And on that note, I would like to thank you all for listening. Handing the word back to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Thymen Rundberg from ING.

My first question is around the price increases that you've implemented in Q1. You also stated now that you can maintain those price increases when electricity prices drop throughout the year. So I see that your prices are currently a bit at the high end versus competitors, even the ones in the Spark Alliance as well. To what extent do you believe that your current customer base is price sensitive, i.e., what's the impact of your price increases on volumes? And how long do you think you can keep prices at this level even if electricity prices drop throughout the year? And then my second question is on the funding. You stated that your current cash position and the retail bond program is expected to be sufficient for a large part or all of the 2026 rollout. Last year, you also said that you're investigating bank financing. Are there any updates on this? And are you still looking to diversify your funding sources beyond the retail bond program?

Let me start to say a bit about pricing and then maybe I'll hand over to Victor on the funding. Yes, I think pricing, what I've seen in the market, I've seen prices going up. So basically, yes, especially if you look at like a market in the Netherlands, you see that basically everyone is reacting to the fact that the tax system has been changed and that needs to basically find its way. So I would say the opposite. I would say, Fastned is actually very much in the market with its pricing. And we don't see any problem of continuing this pricing policy basically.

Yes. Then on funding, so we -- like I said before, we're investigating bank financing. Bank financing has become available for the sector. And that is a project for us we're investigating and looking to see how we can make it work really well for Fastned. So that's a project that's ongoing. So if and when that concludes, we can say more.

Our next question comes from Paul de Froment from Bryan Garnier & Co.

Yes. So my first question is related to the rollout. So the station rollout was a little bit below expectation in Q1. So could you explain why and give us some visibility on that? And my second question is what is the average installed megawatt capacity per station? I assume that it's 3 megawatts, but if you could give us more color on this? And finally, my last question is, do you plan to address corporate charging at some point? And when I refer to corporate charging, I mean, everything related to heavy-duty mobility or truck warehouse, something like that.

Thanks a lot, Paul. I didn't fully understand your last question. So maybe it's good to reiterate that one. You mentioned like corporate charging. Do I...

Yes, corporate charging. I mean, fleets -- corporate fleets. Chargers, I mean, for corporate fleets.

And do you mean then at offices or what do you...

Yes, for heavy-duty mobility, for trucks.

For trucks. And in what way?

I mean, for example, we see some operators addressing charging need for trucks. So they operate location for trucks, coaches. And so I was wondering if at some point, it could be better.

I get your question. Thanks for adding some color to that. Yes, let me start with that one. So the way we've been looking at this in very, very large detail. The way we see it is Fastned is a party that invests in locations. We are a brand. We're a location owner. And we're not a, let's say, operator maintain type of company for assets on premises. So when you're looking at, let's say, a distribution center that typically would need maybe charging infrastructure, we're not an operator of locally-owned machines on site. When we're looking at the locations that we have, we are already deploying truck charging on those locations. We're piloting, let's say, the performance of that. You might have seen the first press releases of sites, for example, in Belgium. And we see, let's say, the rollout of trucks starting to accelerate as well. So that proves to be, I think, something that could be very interesting for the future. So I think it's really on a location basis that we're looking at this. And yes, it's -- in that sense, we would not target an operator maintain business in that sense. Then maybe towards the rollout, as mentioned during the presentation, we've been focusing a lot on getting Spain and Italy up and running. We've been focusing a lot on scaling up our supply chain. So we expect to see more scale of that in the months to come. So in that sense, we are working on this. But it is -- it will take a bit of time to basically take that pain and to get it to a higher level. Looking at the capacity installed on site, we believe that when we look at, let's say, charging speeds going up, you will need a very proper grid connection in place on site to sell serious amounts of kilowatt hours per day. We might install buffers at some point where needed. And when we're looking at what I call serious, then yes, we're talking about connections of 1 to 2, sometimes even 3 megawatt or more. So that is very serious in that sense. And that is also later in the presentation you can see a bit of the cost increases. And we've been also buying more contract power on the grid, which is a consequence of -- on some sites, costs going up. So that about your question. Does that give you a bit of color on those topics?

Our next question comes from Nikita Lal from Deutsche Bank.

I would have also 2. The first one is on your pipeline of secured locations. I noticed that you discontinued 2 of these locations. Could you provide more color why you've discontinued this? And could we expect more discontinuations in the upcoming quarters? And my second question would be on the U.S. tariffs. I understand that you are not impacted by the tariffs directly and you're just using some Google products. But is your supply chain of charging equipment also not impacted by the tariffs?

Yes. Maybe on the pipeline, let me start with that. I think basically, there is 2 things that reduce the number of locations that Fastned has or has acquired. One is simply concessions or contracts that are ending. That is currently not that much. But at some point, we will get into renewal processes, which are, let's say, later in the decade. Today, here and there, we see very small percentage of sites dropping out as a consequence of, let's say, building permits or grid connections not materializing, which we would have expected to materialize according to our initial due diligence. And what are we talking about then, for example, we think about the grid connection, which we assumed and from research knew that was available, but later proved to be so costly that simply the business case doesn't run or a building permit, which we assess to be able to procure, but for example, would not allow us to build the station to its size or needs that we desired. So in that sense, that is a consequence typically of, let's say, if you think about this business being in that sense, this part being quite close to something like real estate development. As a real estate developer, you here and there have chances of things not developing, and that's basically what this is. So that on that topic. And then maybe tariffs, do you want to say something about that, Victor?

Yes. So we assess our supply chain, obviously, on anything tariff exposed. Basically, it's extremely limited because we source little from the U.S. So if you -- so what do we source? It's software. I think any company in Europe sources software from the U.S., things like AWS and Google Workspace for us. If you look at the cost of that and any impact from any trade tariffs, those are less than 1% of our revenues, to give you a bit of an order of magnitude. And then on the CapEx side, we also source mainly from Europe and also our supplies sourced mainly from Europe. And if anything, it's -- the remainder is from China and not from the U.S. So also there, it's less than 1% of our CapEx that is exposed. So I think we can be happy that we don't have that exposure to the U.S. I hope that answers your question.

Our next question comes from Robert Vink from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Two questions from my side. Firstly, 7 new stations became operational during the quarter. Can you further clarify what you're seeing in the development pipeline, which is clearly large and growing? And what makes you confident that this construction pace will accelerate during 2025 to achieve your outlook of 400 to 425 stations by year-end? And my second question is about the Spark Alliance partnership. Clearly, this partnership can help creating a more seamless charging experience across Europe. What are your expectations with regards to the time line before your app has integrated stations from other members and maybe when your competitors and their apps have also integrated your stations and other types of integrations you may be planning? So how challenging is this partnership? How much work will it take to drive this integration?

Yes. Thanks for these questions, Robert. I think maybe to start with Spark, one, I think looking at the integrations that we're doing, we're talking about a time line of roughly this year. By the summer, we want to create the visibility. And by the end of the year, we want to make sure that the payments integration works. So that's quite a challenging time line. But I think when we're talking about lifting the network out of the crowd, then I think the time line is probably a bit longer. So then we're talking about creating visibility and awareness for Spark Alliance as that group of quality networks towards -- from Google Maps to the typical in-car navigations and making sure that people have the ability to use that as a preference and to not be sent to chargers with red tape around it anymore. So in that sense, there's stuff that is in our control and there's stuff that we're working towards with the rest of the industry. But I think the value that we can deliver both for the transition as for our companies, as for the driver is really very, very significant. So there's a win-win-win in that sense. Yes, talking about the pipeline, I'm very happy that we're, this quarter have been, let's say, setting foot on the ground with our supply chains in Italy, in Spain to get those stations being built. But what I also see it in that sense, it does -- yes, that focus takes away the focus of scale. So that is really where we need to get the focus back in the coming quarters to churn out the numbers. And that is what we're working on. So we know the target that we're -- let's say, we're chasing, and we're very confident that we're delivering on that. Maybe to add maybe one thing is maybe good. I think to add like where does that confidence come from? In the end, it's a combination of very simplistically said 2 things. One is an agreement with a contractor that there is people, time, material to get it done. So that is there, check mark. And the other part is the fact that there's a permit. So for these sites, we very well assessed like are these permits there? So that is the basis of which we develop our confidence levels in that sense. And yes -- and it's the execution where then the bottlenecks potentially arise. But that gives you a bit of a color on that topic, I think. Any more questions?

Our next question comes from Thijs Berkelder from ABN AMRO ODDO.

Michiel, in the first part of the presentation, you really sounded like the Pope on the EV charging industry. Compliments for that. You've probably spent a big amount of time on promoting the industry and talking with your Spark Alliance partners. But for the investor, I truly hope you refocus on your own business and indeed delivering on the construction pace at hand. First question on the Spark Alliance. From a financial perspective, what does it really bring to Fastned? If IONITY subscription users, let's say, have a charging tariff of EUR 0.50 per kilowatt hour and charge at Fastned, what is Fastned getting for this charge? What kind of agreements have been made there? And what does it bring Fastned? The other question is more for Victor. And I'm again looking at Slide 9 with the station economics. And you've redrawn the picture you've shown a year ago on the station dynamics in Q1 '24. Now you suddenly use the operating cost per station for the average of the full year. But in Q1, they were much lower than the number you've shown there. So also for this year, my question is the EUR 128,000 you now show, what is the upside and the downside there in the year to come? I get the impression that with every uptick in users coming in, there's a strong uptick in costs as well. So I fail to see the operating leverage right now in the business model. You're simply not demonstrating the operating leverage in the business model. So when can we see that finally coming in? And related to the same slide, I see an initial investment now of EUR 780,000 per station, but that's excluding those expansion costs per station, which now also has run high to almost EUR 500,000. So are we not looking at the wrong metrics when looking at the return on invested capital? Is it not that in reality you're targeting roughly half of these returns?

Yes. So let me start, Thijs, and then Michiel can take over. Yes, so on costs, we have a detailed slide in the appendix on that. So what are the cost increases? It's -- for a large part, almost half is grid fees. And that is a combination of grid operators increasing their tariffs because they need to do a lot of investments. And these are regulated tariffs. So it's basically what the whole market is subjected to, including all our competition. And it's something, yes, that we have to take. I think what is key for us in this is that with our business case at scale, so we're still only at 5% EV fleet penetration. If we are at more scale, then we have extremely attractive station economics and that will allow us to lower our prices at some stage. And the effect of cost increases means that we simply can lower our prices less than anticipated, while maintaining the same return levels. So I think that is key to understand and that's also -- we are, of course, extremely focused on these costs, but this is the cost level that comes with the fast charging business case. And I think it's also important to mention that our business case is not the ones that others have. So what we see is that we have doubled the utilization of the market. If you look at station sales, we're even at 4x a lot of parties in the market. So the cost increases will hurt them more. And that's also the reason why you see competition raising their prices, in my view, to get some level of profitability. So I think it's...

Yes, I fully agree there. But a year ago, you had a utilization rate of 13.5% and now 1 percentage point more. So that's -- it's not such a big difference. A year ago, you presented operating cost per station of EUR 94,000. And now with hindsight, you published that it's EUR 110,000, so 15% more. In your Q4 presentation, you presented EUR 101,000, while -- if I make my calculation, it in Q4 probably was more like EUR 130,000. So therefore, my question for '25, are we looking at the right operating cost per station? How much higher will we go in '25 than the EUR 128,000 you're now showing? And by the way, that adds up to operational EBITDA of EUR 100,000, not EUR 96,000, but that's a side remark. That's my key worry. How much are you in control of operating costs?

Yes. So that is what we tried to do also last year, Q1 last year is -- give an outlook on the operating cost per station and per charger basically and they turned out to be higher. So -- and that's what we reflected now in this slide to basically update that to show the picture last year. So we included the realized costs last year in this slide for Q1 2024. Obviously, also the number of charges go up. So that means -- per station that means that the total operating cost per station go up because we're expanding capacity. I think what we've been doing with these grids cost increases, we're -- we've done a lot of work on understanding this in much more detail on -- in our key markets, almost on a station basis, predicting the costs and predicting the cost increases associated with higher usage. So that's a key step that, of course, you can't see that, but we have taken that step internally to get much more certainty on these grids, the cost of these grids. So we feel we have much more visibility on the grid fees this year than last year. So yes, so we feel we have more certainty.

Yes. Maybe my spreadsheet is wrong, but if I make the calculation on what you now present for Q1, it's EUR 6.3 per charger for Q1. If I do that times 4, then I end up at EUR 25,000 for the full year and not that something like what is what you're saying, EUR 21,000 for the year. But let's discuss that out of the call, better proceed with the return on invested capital then.

I think, Thijs, I think maybe a bit of a macro view from myself on this. I think a large part of it is simply the investments also in the future. So the buying, let's say, contracted power on the market. And that contract power is very scarce, as you know, especially in the Netherlands, but more also now in Belgium. And if you don't do that, you simply -- in a couple of years from now, you don't have capacity scale. And that for me, it really brings it back to today accepting basically lower utilization on your assets, on your charges, but on your entire assets as a consequence of willing to capture that future market because otherwise, you simply can't. And you see that in CapEx, but here, we also see it a bit in OpEx. Maybe a couple of words on Spark and on the Pope because I think it's good to say like why do I sound like the Pope. I think it's very important to be aware that in the Netherlands, which many of the people here dialing into the call and asking questions are living, in the Netherlands, we're already seeing, let's say, levels of 34% of new cars sold being electric. But we still see in the rest of Europe numbers that are significantly lower. And getting electric cars on the road and getting that revenue line for our business and also other businesses in the industry up and making sure that we have a predictable revenue line for our investments is I think incredibly important. So that is why I think it's actually very valuable that I play the role of the Pope here and there. Yes. Then maybe on Spark Alliance, I think you asked about like how does that pricing work and how does the bill work. And I think there, it's important to say, it is not a joint venture or one legal entity. It is an agreement between parties to work together. So we are competitors. And according to AFIR, European legislation on charging, individual charging companies need to set their prices. They are required to set prices. So we will do that and we've been doing that. And well, you see the prices here in the sheets, right? So we will see IONITY, Electra according to their desires, as Victor also mentioned on station economics, doing their logic and setting their own pricing. But the pricing towards the end consumer will just be based on the existing networks and those parties behind it. Does that give clarity on that topic, Thijs?

Yes, yes. No, that's clear. And I fully understand why you need to talk like the Pope. Don't misunderstand me. But we're now also in the company call and your construction pace was disappointing. And then the perception is, well, the CEO is more busy with acting like the Pope than really making sure that Fastned growth is on track. But that's, let's say, the side comment. Coming back on the power deals and the power contracts in the Netherlands, you I think did some first test and maybe made first agreements with grid operators whereby you, let's say, resell your capacity to the grid operator probably for a certain price. When and where can we see those revenues come into the P&L?

I think you're talking about flexible tariffs, right, like supporting congestion issues? Are you talking about that, Thijs?

Yes, correct.

Yes, we're testing a couple of them. So I think that is really at the level of piloting. You won't see that back in costs I think that much. But it's also not something we're necessarily pursuing out of, let's say, a business interest. It's more like something we're pursuing to make sure that grid operators start to understand the logic and the need for flexibility and to start working with the technology landscape behind it because we don't necessarily, let's say, from a business perspective, love to give capacity back to the grid operators. It is more about making them work with flexibility to start the issuance of flexible capacity on top of what we already have. Does that make sense? Any further questions?

Our next question comes from Luuk Van Beek from Degroof Petercam.

Yes. I have a question about the cost per charger basically or maybe in general, the cost because they are now rising relatively because you are -- well, basically keeping spare capacity for future growth. But how long do you think it will take before there will be an inflection point where you say the growth in utilization will more than offset these additional costs?

I think -- yes, interesting question. I think what you see is that at higher usage, you will have more operational EBITDA and more leverage. I think what we see now is, also to Thijs point, why doesn't the operational leverage kick in? Well, because we see the cost per charger going up, especially from the grid fees, almost 50% of the cost increase is coming there. So once that stabilizes and we continue to have revenue growth, which we definitely expect given where BEV fleet penetration is going, you will see this operational leverage coming back again. I think that's also where you're alluding to. So in the time line, I think yes, it's also a bit towards the slide on profitability, and you also see there. You can see that -- and that's more from an EBIT perspective that many markets will become EBIT positive over the next 2 to 3 years. So that's -- and then, of course, the Benelux will increase profitability above the EBIT -- positive EBIT level. So I hope that gives you a bit of a view on time lines.

And my second question is about the new openings. Did you encounter any setbacks in getting grid connections or contracts, whatever, in Q1 or that you foresee for Q2?

Your question is whether we see any setbacks in grid connections delivery, right?

Yes, if the number of sites you opened in Q1 or that you plan for Q2 is in line with what you expected before?

We don't see any, let's say, negatives on top of, let's say, what we know from the due diligence basically. So let's say, the timings that we got earlier, that is still basically the case. But there is locations that we have in the pipeline from that 587 sites that have a development time line of 2 or 3 years. And that's a consequence of grid congestion. So in that sense, yes, the congestion is still there in countries like the Netherlands, starting to be there in areas in Belgium, U.K. Does that give you clarity on that topic?

Yes, that gives a bit more color.

We currently have no questions coming through. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. So I'll hand you back over to your host to conclude today's conference.

And I would say thank you all for listening, and looking forward to see you at the other -- in the next quarter.

Thank you all. Bye-bye.

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.