It’s game over for EVBox – French energy giant Engie shuts it down

France’s Engie says it will liquidate the entire EVBox group, which the company says posted total losses of €800 million since Engie took over in 2017.

The Amsterdam-based charging infrastructure provider EVBox is closing its operations in the Netherlands, in addition to branches in Germany and the US.

According to Dutch media reports, only 30 of the 700 jobs will be retained, with Engie in talks with unions about temporary work for about 100 of those employees. Engie also says that EVBox has more than 20,000 business customers. The energy company tried to take EVBox public via a stock market merger, reported Reuters, but that failed in 2021.

Since Engie took over in 2017, EVBox suffered mostly losses, costing Engie a total of €800 million, according to Dutch media outlet FD. Engie had been on the search for a buyer several months prior, but decided to pull the plug after receiving two bids. The only exception is that Engie did sell its freshly modernized factory in Bordeaux to an unknown buyer, according to FD.. 

What does this mean for the EVBox charging products already installed? That is unclear, and so far customers don’t have an answer. Since being founded in 2010, the company has supplied 500,000 charging points around the world, with the major truck charging corridor being Paris and Lyon, which opened last week, using a 480 kW EV charging point. Last year, Electrek announced that EVBox was manufacturing its modular DC fast charging EV stations at its factory in Libertyville, Illinois, and key customer deliveries were targeted for the Build America, Buy America chargers. Earlier this month, the office of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced the donation of 40 EVBox stations to provide charging to the state’s national parks and public areas.

Back in July, Austria’s EnerCharge, which manufactures DC charging stations, filed for insolvency before being bought by Keba.

The charging infrastructure sector has been feeling the heat, as funding programs have been canceled as the market ramp-up has fallen short in some countries, according to Elective. Also, new regulations such as the AFIR require more investments in hardware and software, which adds extra pressure to smaller providers. And we can’t rule out politics, with Dutch media reports claiming that Engie, with France being a major shareholder in the company, favored the French manufacturing sites over the Dutch ones.

Photo: EVBox

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