EVgo Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the EVGO third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Just as a reminder, we have allotted one hour for this call. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ted Brooks, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to EVGO's third quarter earnings call. My name is Ted Brooks, and I head up investor relations at the company. Today's call is being webcast, and the call and supporting materials can be accessed from the investor section of our website at investors.evgo.com. The call will be archived and available there, and the company's results, investor presentation, and a transcript of today's proceedings will be available at the events and presentation section of the investor's page after the conclusion of today's call. Joining me on today's call are Cathy Zoe, eVigo's CEO, and Olga Shevrenkova, the company's chief financial officer. Today, we will be discussing eVigo's latest financial results for the third quarter of 2021, followed by a Q&A session. During the call, management will be making forward-looking statements regarding the 2021 fiscal year and our outlook for expected growth and investment initiatives. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, including, among other risks and uncertainties, the severity and duration of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These forward-looking statements apply as of today. we undertake no obligation to update these statements after the call. For a more detailed description of factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our Form 10-Q filed soon with the SEC and posted to the investor section of our website. Also, please note that certain financial measures we use on this call are of a non-GAAP basis. For historical periods, we provide reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures, and the investor presentation can be found on the investor section of our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Kathy Zoe, EVgo's CEO. Kathy?

Thanks, Ted, and good morning, everyone. EVgo continued to make great progress during the third quarter, which marked our first full quarter operating as a public company. With 130,000 EV sales in Q3 and now over 1.3 million EVs on U.S. roads, EVgo's operations in the third quarter demonstrated further progress toward an electrified transportation future. We celebrated the continuing growth of our customer base with customer accounts ending the quarter at over 310,000, an 11% increase from just the last quarter. We generated our highest network throughput ever at eight gigawatt hours, a 31% increase in network throughput quarter over quarter with retail and fleets both showing significant upticks. And this in turn resulted in a 29% quarter over quarter revenue increase. EVgo's network performed well, delivering hundreds of thousands of charging sessions across 35 states and 68 metropolitan areas, with plenty of capacity on our current network footprint to accommodate expected traffic from 2022 EV sales. Said another way, EVgo's existing charger base can handily absorb the throughput arising from expected near-term growth in EV sales, and we're expecting charging revenue to increase accordingly. And given that we're in the business of skating to where the puck is going to be, we're continuing to build charging stations in advance of the dozens of EV models hitting the market in 2023, 24, and beyond. This means that during the third quarter, we ensured that every part of EVgo's station development pipeline expanded. Agreements with new national and regional site hosts eager to participate in transportation electrification. dozens of local government authorities reviewing applications for fast charging stations within their localities, some faster than others, working with major utilities and utility commissions toward new EV-friendly electricity tariffs, and engaging with the government agencies launching new programs to provide financial support for charging infrastructure. Taken together, EVgo's active engineering and construction pipeline grew to nearly 2,500 DCFC charging stalls, 400 more than when we last spoke with you just three months ago. With EVgo placing 47 new stalls into service in nine metro markets in Q3, bringing total stalls in operation to 1,595 by the end of last quarter. In particular, the market appetite for hosting fast chargers is accelerating and an increasing clip. EVgo now has multi-year programs underway with national retailers like Target, Kroger, Whole Foods, Albertsons, and retail real estate leaders like Regency Centers, Kimco, and Brixmore. These are complemented by a plethora of site host agreements with more regional and local retail brands. all of whom have joined and accelerated the transition to electrification as EVgo retains our commitment to build stations and locations convenient to drivers in their everyday lives. And based on the increased appetite for EVgo charging stations across the board and General Motors' sustained commitment to electrification and planned delivery of 30 EV models to the market by 2025, I'm pleased to report that EVgo and GM have expanded our partnerships. Together, we will be building an additional 500 high-powered fast-charging stalls by 2025, taking the total in this program to 3,250. Geographically, the work with GM and others means that we expect EVgo's public charging network to span over 75 metro markets in at least 40 states by 2025. During the third quarter, we also focused on deepening our relationships with EV drivers themselves, launching new customer loyalty and pricing programs, as well as per-transaction billing. Coupled with EVgo's existing reservations, coupons, and seamless parking garage access, these efforts are aimed at increasing flexibility, incentivizing charging at different times during the day, and enhancing a world-class customer experience. Also during this quarter, EVgo's reach into the growing electrified fleet segment expanded, Tailoring our offerings to the particular needs of businesses that own and operate fleets, we introduced the EVgo Optima software product suite. Optima's fleet management platform delivers highly efficient charging performance, co-optimizing costs, energy demand, and grid conditions in a manner that integrates fully with the charging needs of our fleet customers. To that end, EVgo's fleet business is growing, with new agreements announced with General Motors, Merchant Fleet, and Electric Last Mile Solutions. EVgo also signed a new agreement with Uber to extend and expand our relationship in helping drivers on the Uber platform go electric. And building on our pilot work with Penske on the DCFC side, EVgo and Penske have a new order for high-powered Level 2 chargers at Penske locations that are starting this quarter. EVGO has achieved these milestones despite some headwinds that continue to affect not just our nascent industry, but the whole global economy as workers everywhere face continued COVID restrictions and the raft of uncertainties that come with it. So far in 2021, EVGO has seen that while the time it takes us to construct a station is four to eight weeks, the average timetable for getting high-powered charging stations from concept to utility energization in dense retail parking lots can be 18 months or more. And so during Q3, we worked with our partners, including GM, to adjust charger build programs accordingly, including updating partnership agreements where that was required to reflect current market reality. We, of course, continue to engage with other members of the charging ecosystem, utilities, local permitting authorities, state funding agencies, and site hosts themselves through our Connect the Watts program to create a more streamlined process for bringing chargers to life, You've heard me call it a flywheel, and we see evidence that it's starting to spin. EVGO witnessed a 50% increase in the number of permits granted in Q3 versus Q2. We logged a third consecutive quarter of exceeding quarterly targets for executed sites. A company record in Q3 of beating our targets by 37%, and we met our full-year target one quarter early. and we more than doubled the number of executed utility easements in Q3 versus the prior quarter. There is, of course, much more to be done, as local permitting and utility easements remain bottlenecks in the fast charger build process. Overall momentum for electric vehicles and the decarbonization of transportation is undeniable, though. Whether it is the new EV purchases I referenced above, the greater than 50% increase in 2027 EV penetration forecasts made by leading market analysts in the last year, OEM commitments ranging from Ford's plans to invest $11 billion in new EV and battery manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Toyota's announcement to have a full battery electric vehicle on the market by next spring, GM's October Analyst Day that focused on the centrality of the EV universe for its plans, or the continued support at a policy level that is playing out in the U.S. and elsewhere. On that last point, a quick update and perhaps sense of scale for the programs included in the infrastructure and reconciliation bills in Congress. The infrastructure bill, which was passed late last week, includes provisions that allow for up to $7.5 billion of grant funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and additional potential opportunities on top of that, This new support represents a considerable increase in the financial commitment on the part of policymakers for the EV and EV charging industry, and the funds will likely flow through the state starting in late 2022 and on into 2023. Additionally, as big as the infrastructure bill is, there's likely more to come. The Build Back Better Act reconciliation legislation includes an extension and expansion of the Section 30C tax credits, supporting the build-out of EV infrastructure, as well as consumer tax credits for EV purchases, both new and used, delivering benefits to more U.S. drivers. EVgo strongly supports complementing infrastructure funding with consumer-side incentives for purchasing EVs. And we'll be watching closely in the coming weeks as the final terms of Build Back Better are hopefully agreed and this package of additional EV incentives is passed by the Congress and heads to President Biden's desk. One final note on these pieces of legislation, though. While we are enthusiastic about the additional tailwind Build Back Better could provide to transportation electrification, EVGO's build program is and has been grounded in investing in charging assets that will deliver returns to our shareholders based on the market settings in place at the time we decide to make an investment in that charging station. Our multi-year forecasts and plans were developed without reliance on pending or potential legislation. With the infrastructure bill now a reality, we will be working with policymakers on how the funding will get distributed over the coming months and will update EVGO's own business plans accordingly. We expect that this funding will allow for more rapid expansion and increased upside for EVGO's growth, and I look forward to discussing this with you on future calls. With that, I'll turn the call over to Olga to provide our financial and operational updates, as well as our updated 2021 guidance.