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The electric vehicle charging supplier backed by EDF and Legal & General has warned that weak retail demand for UK electric vehicles will impact annual revenue, sending shares down nearly 40 per cent 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 “difficult backdrop”, including “near-term uncertainty” in the UK electric vehicle market, was to blame. . The annual results were expected to be lower than current market expectations.
The company said that a government consultation that began at the end of last year on the UK's targets for electric car sales had increased uncertainty. The consultation came after complaints from car manufacturers that sales of electric cars were not rising fast enough to reach quotas.
The UK's electric car quota system, also launched last year, requires 80 per cent of car sales to be zero-emission vehicles by the end of the decade, with the proportion rising from 22 per cent in 2024.
Registrations of new electric cars jumped by 21 per cent to a record 382,000 cars last year, with the UK narrowly overtaking Germany as the largest market for battery-powered cars in Europe for the first time.
However, discounts on electric vehicles attract them Customers are hesitant The shift away from petrol cars has cost carmakers billions of pounds. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) trade group also warned that demand had not grown “in line with expectations”.
SMMT has cited relatively weak sales among private buyers compared to businesses, with only one in 10 UK private buyers choosing an electric vehicle in 2024 according to its analysis.
Pod Point said on Monday that “ongoing weakness in the new private vehicle segment of the electric vehicle market” is weighing on trading. As a result, the group said it expects revenues of £53 million for the latest financial year, below previous guidance of around £60 million.
It added that its net cash fell to £5.3m as of the end of December, well below its previous guidance of around £15m.
Pod Point CEO Melanie Lin, who previously worked at Shell, said the company “made good progress on our costs” in 2024, “but a weaker-than-expected private electric vehicle market negatively impacted revenues.” Full-year results are scheduled to be announced in April.
Shares fell more than 38 per cent in early trading to 10.30 pence. The company was listed in London in November 2021.
Pod Point sells chargers for homes and workplaces. In its latest results covering the six months to the end of June, the group announced sales of £28.1 million and said it had 242,000 devices installed across the UK.
Motorists' concerns about a shortage of charging points and the high upfront costs of many electric car models are among the factors holding back the UK's switch, experts say.
Pod Point added in its statement this morning that EDF remains a “very supportive shareholder”.
Additional reporting by Kana Inagaki
