EV charging company ChargePoint plunges as sales sag, executives replaced

ChargePoint Holdings Inc. shares plummeted in early trading after the company posted disappointing quarterly revenue and swapped out two of its top executives.

The electric-vehicle charging company said revenue slumped to between $108 million and $113 million for the quarter that ended last month, down from a year ago and well short of its guidance for at least $150 million. Pasquale Romano, who had been chief executive officer since 2011, and Chief Financial Officer Rex Jackson were replaced effective Thursday.

“Big changes we did not see coming,” Gabe Daoud, an equity analyst at TD Cowen who rates ChargePoint the equivalent of a buy, wrote in a report Thursday. “The EV charging space has endured significant headwinds this year — evidenced by recent weak prints from other hardware/network providers — and despite being a leader CHPT is not immune.”

ChargePoint shares — which have already lost more than two thirds of their value this year — plunged as much as 34% before the start of regular trading Friday. The company’s market capitalization is headed below $1 billion from a peak of $11.2 billion in June 2021.

EV charging companies have struggled to compete with Tesla Inc., which has built out a vast network of plugs with a different connector design than the rest of the US industry. The superior charging experience the EV manufacturer offers its customers has led almost all major automakers to switch to its connector as the new North American standard.

ChargePoint went public in 2021 by merging with a special purpose acquisition company as part of a wave of EV-related deals that included Lordstown Motors Corp. and Lucid Group Inc. Investors have soured on many of these companies, some of which were risky, early-stage ventures burning lots of cash.

Read More: Tesla’s Shrewdest Product Is Proving to Be Its Charging Network

ChargePoint promoted Rick Wilmer, who joined as chief operating officer in July of last year, to replace Romano, who will remain an adviser. Jackson has left the company and will be replaced on an interim basis by Mansi Khetani, senior vice president of financial planning and analysis.

(Updates with analyst’s comment in the third paragraph.)