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spk09: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your Blink Charging Company second quarter 2021 earnings call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. If you should require assistance throughout the conference, please press star zero to reach a live operator. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to Jennifer Belladeau of IMS Investor Relations. Ma'am, the floor is yours.
spk08: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Blink Charging's second quarter 2021 investor call. On the call today, we have Michael Farkas, founder and CEO, Brendan Jones, president, and Michael Rama, chief financial officer. I would like to take a minute to read the Safe Harbor statement. This conference call contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements in terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should, or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of Blink and members of its management, as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. including those described in Blink's periodic reports filed with the SEC, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, Blink undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions. I'll now turn the call over to Michael Farkas, CEO of Blink Charging. Go ahead, Michael.
spk07: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This was a very exciting quarter for Blink as we made considerable progress with our owner-operator strategy, we expanded internationally, we added some of the best in the industry to our team, and continued to position ourselves as a leader and innovator in the EV industry. Second quarter revenue grew 177% compared to the second quarter of 2020 as we continued to aggressively expand our geographic footprint. During the quarter, we made tremendous progress with 3,264 commercial and residential chargers contracted, sold, or deployed, and the number of commercial Blink-owned charging stations contracted or deployed grew more than 46% compared to the same period in 2020. Location is the key for our chargers as more individual drivers and fleets transition to greener transportation. and we prepare the charging infrastructure that will be necessary as utilization increases. We continue to make solid progress during the quarter, securing locations in high-density, high-volume venues like hotels, multifamily residentials, mixed-use facilities, and healthcare networks. We believe our industry is poised for exponential growth, and we are aggressively scaling our business not just here in the United States, but around the world to ensure that we are in the best position to capitalize on the long-term opportunities associated with the global progression to EV use. As the world transitions to driving EVs, Blink can prepare the way by providing our chargers as a key component to what will be a much-in-demand infrastructure, the national infrastructure charging stations around the world. With a future in mind, we've enlisted and will continue to pursue the best talent available in the EV charging industry to help evaluate our technology and our market presence. During the quarter, we announced the addition of Harjinder Bhatti as our new chief technology officer. Mr. Bhatti is an industry veteran and an exceptional leader with extensive knowledge of the EV charging space, and he was a founder of ChargePoints. As we continue to expand globally, we're confident that Harjinder's proven track record of success as a software engineer and senior executive will be instrumental to the growth of Blink Charging. We're also thrilled to welcome Miko Dahan as the new managing director of our European subsidiary, Blink Holdings BV. As I'll detail in a minute, we believe Europe represents tremendous growth opportunity, so it makes sense for us to enhance our operating presence there. Finally, we recently strengthened our board with the addition of technology and infrastructure leader Carmen Perez-Calton. She brings many years of senior executive experience, including leadership roles and operations, finance and sales and marketing, and we are confident that she's ideally suited to provide advice and guidance as Blink continues to grow and evolve. As chair of our newly formed Environmental, Social, and Governments Committee, she will be forging new and important territory for our company. In perhaps the most notable development of the quarter, we advanced our international strategy with the acquisition of European EV charging operator, Blue Corner.
spk09: We've lost connection with Mr. Farkas. One moment while we reconnect. Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. We should have Mr. Farkas reconnected in just one moment.
spk07: Hello, sorry about that. Got disconnected. As of August 4th, 2021, Blue Corner sold or deployed 8,714 independent chargers comprised of 3,816 level 2 and 25 DC fast charging publicly accessible chargers and 4,873 private residential chargers located across Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. With this acquisition, as I just mentioned, we established Blink Holdings BV, to raise our profile in Europe and enhance our ability to bid for and win new contracts in the region. In addition to contributions from existing business, which Michael Lama will review in a few minutes, during the quarter, Blue Corner signed an exclusive contract with KU Vivant to install up to 500 charging stations across Belgium, so we're seeing continued momentum and looking forward to building on that. To give some additional context around the European opportunity, EVs are being adopted at a faster rate than in the U.S., and it follows that their growing market share should translate into higher utilization of charging stations. Historically, Europe has experienced higher fuel prices, which makes the transition to EVs more attractive by providing a stronger value proposition for drivers. We expect that the transition rate to EVs will continue to grow and contribute demand for more charging stations across the continent. From an international standpoint, we have also recently signed agreements in Israel and Chile to further accelerate our global expansion. We remain intently focused on our owner-operator model. This is an important direction for our business. We enter into long-term exclusive contracts with automatic extensions that employ a revenue-sharing model in which we receive payment each time a vehicle is charged at one of our Blink-Owned units. We sell the fuel. With this structure, we have the potential to generate a valuable reoccurring revenue stream for many years to come as EV utilization increases. Our property owner partners also benefit from this model because we take care of the installation and maintenance of Blink-owned units, which is often a very attractive option for property management companies who literally have just so many other responsibilities on their plate. Additionally, our contracts are instructed to allow us to add charging stations to these contracted locations anytime as necessary as demand increases, and that is throughout the duration of these long-term contracts. It's not about just having a parking space. When we sign a property owner agreement where we provide the services, it's about the entire address. It's about every single type of vehicle that can fuel using electricity. This is a pivotal time to be a leader in the EV charging industry. The shift to EVs is inevitable, and Blink is poised for significant growth as we play a key role providing the infrastructure to support this transition. As we all recently saw, President Biden announced a new executive order setting a target to make half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emission vehicles. Half. It is important not to lose sight on the fact that we are in a very early stage of this transition. And Blink will continue to invest in our technology, people, and operations to solidify our positioning as the best in-class provider of the charging infrastructure needed to support the transformational shift to EV use. Now I'll turn the call over to Brendan Jones, President of Blink, to discuss some more of our recent developments.
spk03: Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to speak with everyone today. We continue to see tremendous interest from the marketplace as demonstrated by the new customers and partnerships we attracted during the quarter. As Michael mentioned, the EV charging industry is still in its relatively early days with tremendous growth potential as EV adoption begins to pick up measurable momentum. The establishment of reliable and accessible EV charging infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with positive leadership trends we're seeing around the development and use of EVs in support of environmental stewardship. And at Blink, we're focused on the long game. We're committed to building operational infrastructure, a class-leading sales force, top-notch leadership, and support teams to further our leadership role and grow our footprint as a provider of state-of-the-art charging. To give you a reference point around how rapidly we're growing, on June 30, 2020, Blink had 66 employees. We have now more than doubled, almost tripled that to 177 as of June 30th, 2021. As we look to strengthen our bandwidth, you can expect to see our head continue to grow. One of the biggest developments, as Michael referenced from the past quarter, has the acquisition of Blue Corner, its portfolio of more than 8,700 charging ports. This acquisition provides Blink with a solid foothold to more effectively access the European market, an under-penetrated market that has the potential to be a huge growth area for Blink as the transition to EVs continues to progress. To give you some clarity and context around this, the European EV market is growing faster than the United States. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles in Europe rose 137% to 1.4 million vehicles last year, whereas the U.S. rose 4% to 328,000, according to EVvolumes.com. The surge in EV adoption will increase demand for blank EV charging infrastructure, and European regulations are further accelerating widespread EV adoption via regulatory support for zero-emissions vehicles. Additionally to our expansion into the European EV charging market, domestically we continue to expand our charging output as we deploy and upgrade our chargers at locations all over the country. Some notable developments include Blink was awarded $12.5 million grant for the deployment of 50 plus DC fast chargers at 25 locations across the state of Florida. Additionally, the deployment of 10 IQ 200 level II EV charging stations at three Atlanticare integrated healthcare systems locations in southern New Jersey, the deployment of 42 charging points at 10 Four Brothers Pizza Inn locations across New York. You can get a slice and get a charge. And we also deployed IQ 200 charging stations at the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland, Oregon. We upgraded 19 first generation Blink EV charging stations in Plano, Texas to our IQ 200 fast level two charging stations. We also continued to pursue agreements, partnerships, and designations that accelerated our growth strategy. We signed an agreement with General Motors to offer GM EV customers more seamless access to publicly available blank charging sites across the United States as part of GM's Ultimum Charge 360 program. We entered into a reseller agreement with EV transportation services to distribute the Blink Q200 mobile portable EV charger along with its Firefly ESV. We had some fun in sponsoring the University of Cincinnati Bearcat electric vehicle racing team. Now, this was the university's first all-electric formula race team, and it's a great idea and a lot of fun for the company. We partnered with Traffic and Parking Control Companies Inc. in Wisconsin, which is a traffic safety and parking solution provider, and they will now distribute blank chargers across their customer base. In the wake of our Blue Corner acquisition, as Michael mentioned, they signed an exclusive contract with KU Louvain for Blue Corner to install up to 500 charging stations across Belgium. And another item, a long-term agreement to deploy Blink EV charging stations to Fatal Hotel Group locations in Israel. For reference, Fatal is one of Israel's leading hotel companies with luxury hotels in 14 major tourist locations throughout the country. As Michael mentioned, we have made a lot of structural improvements to strengthen the company and capitalize on the interests and opportunities we're seeing in the marketplace. These improvements include expanding and improving our sales team, our service operations team, and our product development team. We are very well positioned to support the anticipated growth ahead of us. With that said, our industry now, like many others, is beginning to encounter supply chain challenges related to the global shortage of semiconductors. While our second quarter growths weren't impacted, we will keep you posted on any effects we see as we move through the balance of the year. I will now turn it over to our CFO, Michael Rama, to run through some of the specific results for the quarter. Michael?
spk06: Thank you, Brendan, and good afternoon, everyone. 2021 continues to be a strong fiscal year for blank with total revenue growth of 177% to $4.4 million in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the second quarter of 2020. Revenues for the six months ended June 30th, 2021 grew 129% to $6.6 million compared to the prior year period. This is noteworthy as revenues for the first six months of 2021 has already surpassed total revenues for the entire full year of 2020. This growth has driven by increased product sales, increase in charging service revenues, as well as increases in network fees. Product revenues increased 156% in the second quarter of 2021 as compared to the same period in 2020. And product revenues for the six months ended June 30th, 2021 increased 140%. These increases were related to a robust demand for our commercial and residential chargers. Charging service revenues increased 572% as compared to the second quarter of 2020 and 89% in the first six months of 2021. The increase was attributed to the increased driving with the reopening of the economy as well as increased number of owned and operated units on our network. Network fees grew 49% as compared to the second quarter of 2020 and 70% in the first six months of 2021. The increase was attributed to increases in host-owned units as well as billings and invoicing to property partners during the first six months of 2021 compared to the six months ended June 30th, 2020. Second quarter 2021, net loss was $13.5 million, or 32 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $3 million, or 11 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2020. For the second quarter of 2021, net loss was primarily attributable to an increase in compensation expense and G&A expenses. Net loss for the six months ended June 30th, 2021, increased to $20.8 million from $6 million in the prior year period. Specifically, operating expenses for the second quarter, 2021, increased to $13 million from $3.4 million. Operating expenses for the six months and to June 30th, 2021, increased to $20.5 million from $6.8 million. This increase was primarily driven by an increase in compensation expense as we invest in our future, as well as the additional personnel in conjunction with acquisitions of Blue LA, Yugo, and Yugo made during 2020, which was subsequent to June 30th, 2020, and the acquisition of Blue Corner, which occurred in May of 2021. A quick note on expenses in the quarter and first half, as Michael mentioned, we are committed to investing in our future by ensuring that we have the people and operational infrastructure to quickly and efficiently and effectively ramp our business as EB use proliferates and demand for charging alternatives escalates. As of June 30, 2021, since its inception, Since its inception, excluding Blue Corner, we sold, deployed, or acquired through acquisitions 18,246 chargers, of which 7,360 were on the Blink network. This consists of 4,517 level 2 publicly accessible commercial chargers, 1,555 level 2 private commercial chargers, 105 DC fast-charging EV publicly accessible chargers, 25 DC fast-charging EV private chargers, and 1,158 residential L2 level 2 blank EV chargers. And the remainder were non-networked on other networks or international sales or deployments. These chargers and units are net of swap-outs or replacements that we have done during the years. In addition, as of August 4th, 2021, since the inception of our recently acquired blue corner, sold or deployed 8,714 independent charge points, which all are on the Blue Corners network, which comprises of 3,816 level two publicly accessible commercial independent charge points, 25 DC fast charging publicly accessible commercial independent charge points, and 4,873 private L2, private DC, and private residential independent charge points. And now a few comments about our cash and liquidity. At June 30th, 2021, cash and marketable securities was $195.6 million compared to $22.3 million at December 31st, 2020. During the first quarter, if you all recall, of 2021, we completed a successful equity raise of $232 million. Now, I'll turn it back to Michael Farkas for additional remarks, and after that, we'll open it up to Q&A. Michael?
spk07: Hello. 2021 has been a busy year. We are energized and prepared to capitalize on the opportunities we're seeing to grow our role as a key contributor to the establishment expansion of worldwide EV charging infrastructure. This is an exciting time for our company and our industry, and we look forward to driving continued growth and progress. With that, we will now open up the call for questions.
spk09: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you do have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. If you're using a speakerphone, we ask that while posing your question, you pick up your handset to provide the best sound quality. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question or comment, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. We'll take our first question from Gabe Dowd with Cohen. Please go ahead.
spk05: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for all the prepared remarks. Michael, I was hoping we could just start with the European strategy. Now with Blue Corner officially in the fold, could you maybe just give us some more thoughts on, I guess, which countries you're targeting specifically? And then I guess just how you plan on going about the plan there and how you plan on executing the European strategy on the back of Blue Corner?
spk07: Very simply, Blue Corner is a company that was very similar to our business, and that's what made them extremely attractive for us. Having the multiple methodologies of deploying, having the hardware and run and operate model really will allow us to expand the Blink model even more so in the European markets. It's an unbelievable fit between our businesses, just from a perspective of business models, hardware, networking, and really just an approach to how we work together. It's just an amazing fit with our business, and we're looking to expand not only into the territories that they're currently active in, but really use them as a stepping stone to get into other areas of the European market. And as Blink, most of you may know, we're a consolidation of about 10, 11 companies now. We look at Blue Corner as being an amazing foundation for us to be able to acquire other businesses in the European space as well.
spk05: Got it. Thanks. That's helpful, Michael. And then I guess as a follow-up, now again with Blue Corner, contribution coming from Europe, which is obviously already a pretty strong market and the U.S. accelerating. How should we think about revenue potential for Blink, I guess, moving throughout the rest of this year and into next year? I know, obviously, there's some supply chain maybe concerns that we have to think about, but could you just help us frame what the revenue potential looks like for next year or maybe just give us a sense of what a port backlog or port inventory near-term number looks like?
spk07: You know, exact numbers we're not going to disclose here, but bottom line is, as you can see, there's a tremendous amount of money being spent and also now being given by the U.S. government to deploy infrastructure. It's not an issue on the demand side. There's a lot of demand for charging infrastructure now, really in preparation for all the EVs that are starting to hit the road. You are correct. There are going to be some problems on the supply side because of some of the chip restraints and so on, and we now are looking at the – you know, the Delta variation of COVID, which are things that we're still monitoring very carefully, but we're not, you know, again, we don't have a crystal ball. We can't, you know, plan on exactly what's going to happen with these issues. We're trying to do the best as we can. But the industry, without a question, is growing. The demand for charging infrastructure is off the charts. We believe we've positioned ourselves properly. But as our orders start increasing in size, and you can see that's happening, we may have some pressure on the supply side.
spk05: Got it, got it. And then just maybe sneak in one more. Obviously, you're deploying across multi-unit dwellings and healthcare networks, and you have a lot of Relationships on the site partner side. Just curious if there's any other relationships you could talk to on the auto OEM side. You mentioned that the GM announcement during the quarter where a blank network will show up on their app. But curious if there's any ways that you could attract or acquire customers at the point of sale of the actual vehicle.
spk07: Okay, well, it's important to understand that, you know, today you can see Blink charging stations at Audi dealerships, and you can see them in GM dealerships, and you can see them over at CarMax. And those are our IQ200 model of hardware. You can't get better validation than that. You know, our hardware really has been developed for where the market's going to be. If you look at our competitors' hardware and their output, it's really where things were years ago. We've maxed out AC capacity. And we're planning on, with the introduction of our next generation of DC, doing the same. So, yes, it's important to be able to go ahead and have the right hardware, the right offerings to be able to work with some of these OEMs. But right now, you know, again, the validation that we're showing is, you know, go to our mobile application and see all the different locations that we're constantly deploying hardware. Look at our numbers. You know, you're talking about north of 3,000 charging stations globally deployed. You're talking over, you know, on average over 1,000 a month. And those numbers are going to start increasing. And again, it's broad-based. It's not only multifamilies. It's not only car dealerships. It's not only mixed use. It's not only health care facilities. It's literally across the board. People are really understanding that our hardware is something that really deals with obsolescence. And any sustainability group from any company that has to look and say, okay, we need to spend X amount of dollars today, they're not going to want to spend that money again in a year or two from now when the car is like, You know, the Hummers and the Audis that are coming out and the Cadillacs that are coming out do have the capacity to match our charging stations, but by far exceed what our competitors' hardware currently achieves. So if you're not buying our hardware, you're buying obsolescence. That's the bottom line today. And, again, those in the industry, the GMs and the Audis and so on, they're seeing this and it's being put into their dealerships.
spk05: Got it. Thanks, guys.
spk09: We'll take our next question from Vikram Bagri with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hey, guys. Good evening, everyone. A couple of quick questions for me. First on EU strategy, can you talk about how you foresee growth in feed solutions in Europe and if you would look to make acquisitions in that category to get a stronger foothold? Also, while we're on the same topic, can you talk about the uptime in your EU assets, given they've been recently acquired, and what kind of spending it will require for updating the hardware of the acquired assets and improving the uptime if it's lower than your US asset base? Brendan, is it possible for you to grab this one?
spk03: Yeah. I mean, I'll speak to the uptime. So, if we're talking about the Blue Corner Network on itself, we'll continually work to upgrade the system there, but we'll also work, as you might imagine, as you purchase a lot of companies simultaneously, you're going to have a signed contract. behind-the-scenes efforts to commonize platforms and standards so that you can mitigate expense. So we're simultaneously looking at that. We'll have global standards for uptime across the board, both internally and published to our partners. And on a product side, we'll begin to commonize platforms over time across both European and the United States. with geographic-specific products that fit the custom needs of each country or region that we're doing business in. As you might imagine, right now we're deploying and selling chargers into South America, Dominican Republic, into Greece, into Israel, and to Belgium, France, and several other countries in the EU. So over time, we'll work to get synergy across those platforms that benefit Blink and bring better value to our customers, whether they're B2B or B2C. Thank you.
spk01: If I can squeeze in one more, could you give us a better handle on the expense front? Compensation expenses obviously increased, and you had highlighted how the workforce has increased a lot, and you've seen a larger increase in revenue, so it's understandable. But can you just give us an indication of what the trajectory of compensation expenses is going to be rest of the year ahead? if second quarter run rate is a run rate that we should assume going forward and what kind of increases we should expect in the rest of the year.
spk06: Yeah, I'll jump on that. And obviously, we've had an uptick in compensation. Obviously, we added Blue Corner, Boo LA, and Yugo in the mix compared to previous quarters. We've increased our staffing. our employees from 66 to over 170 in a year. So, you know, we're investing in the future. We're bringing bodies in now. We're bringing the top talent in now, you know, on a run rate for the rest of the year. You know, I hope to bring in more quality, talented people to grow the company. It's a good thing. You know, so to say it's going to stay static, we'll see some uptick in those areas. And then, obviously, if we do other acquisitions or other expansion, you know, that would add as well to that.
spk03: Yeah, I only ask that when we look at talent. that it's one of the key components to the success of the company, both from a leadership and ingenuity and vision perspective. So we filled a lot of key holes in the company over the last quarter and over the last six months to a year. But as we need more bandwidth, we'll continue to add headcount at the lower levels and have one or two high-level strategic positions that has to be filled. But it's really growing that base of people that, you know, move the company on a daily basis that we'll need to focus on over time and hiring those people. And as you may know, if the company is performing well, as Blink has over the last year, you begin to attract and more talented people come to you as opposed to you recruiting them. And we've seen that phenomenon take place here at Blink.
spk01: Understood. Thank you very much.
spk09: As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question or comment, you may press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. Again, that's star 1 if you'd like to enter the queue. We'll take our next question from Samir Joshi with HC Wainwright. Please go ahead.
spk04: Yeah, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Just wanted a clarification on the revenues from Blue Corner. Have they been included pro forma for the entire quarter or only starting from May 10th? when the transaction closed?
spk06: Yeah, they're included from May 10th when the transaction closed. You'll see when we file our 10-Q on a pro forma what it looks like for what 2020 would look like as well as partial 2021 with Blue Corner included in our results. But for the actuals, it's from the acquisition date forward.
spk04: So the charging revenues are likely to be, if everything else remains same, charging revenues are likely to be slightly higher in the third quarter?
spk06: Yes, that's correct. And obviously, you know, as EV economies continue to open, obviously we're seeing more driving, we're seeing more usage out of our chargers. So But, you know, if there are some constraints that come out because of the Delta variants that may limit some people's driving, but you're also in the summer season, especially in Europe, that could impact that a little bit as well, right? So you have to factor that into the seasonality that's included in there. So it can't be – sometimes it's not strictly linear. You have to factor in seasonality as well as environmental factors.
spk04: Certainly understood. Thanks for that. And then during the quarter, I think you upgraded 19 first-generation charging stations to IQ200. Is there a schedule or a plan to do this going forward, and how many of these are you targeting to upgrade in the next few quarters?
spk03: Michael, you want me to take that? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have you take that. Yeah, so... There's a schedule. Exact numbers, you know, they're constantly floating daily, but we have two challenges there. Our first challenge is making sure we upgrade all the chargers or as many as possible that are under the owner-operated model. That effort is going well. And the second one is then to provide discounted offers on chargers to our site hosts that have owner-operator chargers on units sold. So on blinkers, we're moving forward in a very aggressive position right now, moving forward with the site hosts and installing them. We have several construction companies working across the United States to do this swap out. So we anticipate with over the next six months, we'll get the majority of our old generation chargers swapped out and new generation chargers put in place.
spk04: Understood. Thanks for that. And then just one at the macro level, I think the $1 trillion package that is being discussed at the federal level has $10 to $15 billion, if not more, for charging infrastructure. Does Blink have a team or a point person or contact in D.C. that will position you to take advantage of this, any high-level comments would be appreciated. Thanks.
spk07: Samir, we've been, as you can see, we've been very successful in receiving grants, rebates, and being involved in these programs. As evidenced by the program we just received in the state of Florida, about $12.5 million to deploy AC fast chargers throughout the travel corridors. We have been focusing a lot of our resources and some of the money that we have spent is bolstering our grant and rebate department. That's net money for us. And as you can see from what the Biden administration is doing here as well as others globally, there's a lot of free money available, and we have a lot of experience in going out there and getting that money, and we're going to continuously do so. So... Yes, it's important to us. We're focusing our resources on it, and we plan on growing that division, that group, even more so. In regards to relationships throughout the country and throughout municipalities, You know, what separates us from a lot of our competitors is the fact that we own and operate, and we actually have relationships with these municipalities, and we own and operate or we're operating charging stations that they have in their locations already, and these are legacy contracts, some of them, you know, 5, 6, 7, 10 years old. So, yes, we're able to then work with these organizations, work with the, you know, quasi-government agencies that are dispensing some of these funds and working with these municipalities to be able to go ahead and, you know, you know, deploy these hardware in those locations. So we feel very confident that we are going to be a tremendous beneficiary of all of these different pools of capital. And whether it's, you know, build and make in the U.S. or whether it's just EV charging infrastructure, subsidies, we have the experience in going out there and getting that capital. We have the history of going out there and getting that capital. And we plan on really focusing a lot of efforts on doing so.
spk03: The only thing I'd like to comment is that in D.C., we have a dedicated lobbying and government affairs team that covers not only D.C., but California, and we cover all the top EV states as well to government affairs and lobbying. So we have a presence, very strong presence now.
spk04: No, that's going to be essential going forward. Thanks and congrats on the progress.
spk09: We'll take our next question from Noel Parks with TUI Brothers. Please go ahead.
spk02: Good afternoon. This is Judson filling in for Noel. It's been a busy couple months on the march forward towards on the shift to EV. You know, we've had updated goals from U.S. automakers. We've got the infrastructure bill. How, if at all, has this impacted your view of ED adoption and sales?
spk07: We couldn't be happier, you know, about what's going on in the EV charging space, especially in, you know, from what the products of the OEMs are now trying to, you know, release. There's more cars available now than ever before, and there's more product being released. I mean, if you look at what's going on from Volkswagen and all of their subs, Audi, Porsche, you know, globally, Skoda, Seat, and so on, it's amazing what we're starting to see. And again, GM... every major manufacturer has basically disclosed that they're going towards EV. That is the future of transportation. So we're very excited about what's going on and what we're seeing.
spk02: Brendan, want to add anything? Just one more for you, Michael.
spk03: Okay.
spk02: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mike.
spk03: No, that was Brendan. I said the only thing, I mean, Aside from the goosebumps, and is it actually happening now after waiting all these years? You know, it goes back to what Michael's saying. We're excited, but simultaneously, we're taking it very seriously where we really spent a lot of effort structurally adjusting this company. with new personnel, with top talent, to be ready for this moment in time. And we're more ready now than we've ever been before, and we still have more work to do to make sure that we're best in class.
spk02: My second question maybe ties into that a little bit. You've talked a lot about the expansion of your sales and marketing effort and the priority that that is. Can you talk about sort of the the highest priority goal for the new sales staff to address at this point?
spk07: Michael, you want me to do that, or do you want to handle it? Yes, please. I'm on an airplane. There's a lot of background noise. It would probably be best if you do it.
spk03: So goal number one for the sales team is to find, locate, and then sell to high-utilization sites across the United States. Those are the type of sites where we place chargers, we pay for the charger, the installation, and we know before we do it that we have a long-term income stream. So, that's their number one goal. Their secondary goal is to generate revenue through other products and services that we have. They do number one, it makes number two much easier. I mean, we operate over this flexible model. We sell chargers, then we install them to the owner-operated model, then we have a flexible hybrid model that lets us do a lot of both. And their goal is to make sure that when they meet a site host, that site host is going to pick one of the three of those options. And that flexibility really sets us apart from the industry because we were the only EV infrastructure company that offers that level of flexibility to every site host in the United States. But number one priority, the owner-operated model and excellent site hosts that guarantee utilization and income for the long term.
spk02: Very helpful. Thank you.
spk09: That concludes our question and answer session. We'll turn it back to Mr. Farkas for closing remarks. Sir, the floor is yours.
spk07: Thank you, everyone, for joining us. We appreciate your participation, and we're extremely excited about our years ahead of us, especially in the immediate future and the both near and long term. It's very exciting times in our industry, and we see a lot of tremendous growth and opportunities globally. Thank you, everybody. Thanks.
spk09: This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you again for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a great day.
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