Your questions sparked some thoughts.
You ask about the “moat,” but surely none of these are insurmountable—nothing that others couldn’t achieve. However, there are things where Kempower has been strong so far, or better than many others. In other words, competitive advantages.
- Reliable chargers, good software (including remote management, ChargEye). Traditionally, this has NOT been a given, and there has been a lot of “junk” in the industry, as those who have driven electric cars for a longer time know. In North America, there has been plenty of experience in recent years with very poor average quality from non-Tesla stations (e.g., the situation in California in 2024 was like this).
- A pioneer in the satellite system for dynamic power distribution. Also very essential here is the easier scaling of the entire site to a larger power connection and/or a larger number of charging points, without needing to tear up the installation of every single cabinet, for example.
- Today, e.g., Alpitronic has a similar new product (HYC1000), but as I understand it, Kempower—having offered this approach for years—is still the most credible choice, especially for the largest sites.
- Someone in the industry could probably assess the current competitive situation in satellite systems more accurately…
- A partner that will credibly still exist years from now. I imagine this is a more important factor for many large customers than short-term price.
- High switching costs once Kempower has been selected for a large site or an entire network of a major operator.
Furthermore, one thought: to be competitive, Kempower does not need to be superior or in some way the “only sensible choice.”
For myself, I have justified Kempower’s competitiveness with, among other things, the case in Norway.
Why has Kempower taken shares from, for example, Alpitronic in Norway? According to Tesla-Bjørn (at the Electric Transport Day, Aalto University), it’s because CPOs were dissatisfied with the suboptimal use of grid connections when Alpitronic’s basic cabinets (HYC400) had been installed everywhere. The solution was Kempower’s satellites. Of course, this leads back to the point touched upon above: how soon will Alpitronic have a functional and credible satellite solution widely installed and in use? To my knowledge, they aren’t quite at that point yet.
And another similar point. There is surely a good reason why the Finnish company Plugit is now partnering to install Kempower chargers for heavy transport instead of continuing to sell and install only their own Hube chargers (whoever actually manufactured those). Back in 2023, regarding Plugit specifically, I was more worried about how easily some random company could come along and start selling their own chargers and software to large bus depots.
the strongest companies deliver mediocre results and the weaker ones then fare poorly
The landscape certainly always changes when the weaker ones die off or merge into larger ones (cf. Tritium).