EVgo Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Bailey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everybody to the EVGO Inc. Q1 2023 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star and one. Please limit your question to one initial and one follow-up question. And I will now turn the call over to Heather Davis. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to EVgo's first quarter 2023 earnings call. My name is Heather Davis, and I am the head of investor relations at EVgo. Joining me on today's call are Kathy Zoi, EVgo's chief executive officer, and Olga Shevrenkova, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Jonathan Levy, EVGo's Chief Commercial Officer, will join us for the Q&A portion of the call. Today, we will be discussing EVGo's financial results for the first quarter of 2023 and outlook for the remainder of 2023, followed by a Q&A session. Today's call is being webcast and can be accessed on the Investors section of our website at investors.evgo.com. The call will be archived and available there along with the company's earnings release and investor presentation after the conclusion of this call. During the call, management will be making forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties including expectations about future performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including in the risk factor section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. The company's SEC filings are available on the investor section of our website. These forward-looking statements apply as of today and we undertake no obligation to update these statements after the call. Also, please note that we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call. Information about these non-GAAP measures, including a reconciliation to the corresponding GAAP measures, can be found in the earnings materials available on the investor section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kathy Zoy, EVGO CEO.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today. What an exciting time for EVgo and for the EV industry overall. We believe we're participating in a once in a century sectoral transformation that is underway and unstoppable. As a market leader with a strong track record of delivery to date, EVgo is looking forward to pursuing the plethora of value creating growth opportunities that lie ahead. Building on our strong 2022, EVgo started 2023 with a phenomenal quarter of growth in all core areas, stalls in operation, network throughput, and revenue. In Q1, EVgo delivered over $25 million in revenue, representing 229% year-over-year revenue growth. Network throughput was 17.9 gigawatt hours, an increase of 124% from the first quarter of 2022. And network throughput is growing significantly faster than electric vehicles in operation, demonstrating the leverage of EVgo's fundamental business thesis. EVgo increased stalls in operation or under construction to around 3,100 at the end of the first quarter, growing 48% year over year. We energized a record of approximately 220 new stalls in the quarter, a 69% increase from the first quarter of 2022. Utilization on the network is growing rapidly as well. The top 10% of EVGO stalls have utilization greater than 25%. And the top 20% of stalls demonstrate utilization of over 20%. California, taking its entirety across all metropolitan, corridor, and rural markets, has statewide utilization above 10%. We're seeing metro areas in Texas, Florida, and Nevada with double-digit utilization as well. These up-and-to-the-right results from Q1 and those we reported on our last earnings call from the entirety of 2022 are a testament to the long-term opportunity at EVgo that you've heard us describe since we became a public company a couple years ago. Today, I'll lean into three key pillars supporting EVgo's success. First, EVgo's business model is leveraged to increasing EV adoption. When EV sales grow, EVgo's business grows with it. Second, EVgo's robust market position is built on a foundation of value-creating blue-ribbon partnerships with OEMs, governments, site hosts, and fleets. These commercial partnerships continue to grow and expand. And third, EVgo's technology leadership is charting the course for EV charging and EV ownership more broadly, creating the means for individual drivers, fleet businesses, automakers, retailers, and governments to seamlessly be part of the transportation revolution that is upon us. First, let's talk about EVgo's business model leveraged to the growth in EVs. The market for electric vehicles is continuing to grow at a blistering pace. In 2022, there were 2.2 million EVs in operation, and that is expected to grow to over 33 million by 2030, a 40% compound annual growth rate. Bloomberg's 2022 BNES report predicted that more than half of all passenger cars sold in the U.S. will be EVs by 2030. And I'll note optimistically that we've already exceeded BNES' original EV adoption figures for the early part of this decade. As mass adoption of EVs is underway in the United States, there is a need for more charging and more fast charging in particular. S&P Global has predicted that the U.S. would need approximately 170,000 fast chargers by 2030, and 8x growth from today. Apartment dwellers, high mileage drivers such as rideshare drivers, and fleets are all going electric. And EVGO has found that even drivers who primarily charge at home rely on fast charging for day tripping, longer road trips, and even kilowatt hour top-ups while doing errands around town. Hence, The increase in utilization I referenced earlier that we're witnessing in a growing number of markets across the country, well beyond California. We're committed to building this business in a manner that is sustainable and highly profitable for our shareholders. As you know, EVGO's core business is in asset ownership. We carefully invest in charging infrastructure where we believe it will deliver our targeted returns through ever-increasing asset utilization. We operate a best-in-class public network and expanding that own network to new geographies that pass our rigorous investment hurdles. And we own and operate charging assets for a variety of fleet customers. In addition, we apply our expertise in siting, building, and operating charging infrastructure to a creative capital light business line serving both retail and fleet segments. EVgo extends and our behind-the-sense offerings to fleets expand EVgo's competitive position and broaden EVgo's customer reach, while providing us with additional predictable recurring revenue streams as a builder, operator, and integrator, but insulating us from utilization risks in markets where we don't want that exposure. Building a business leveraged to rising EV adoption has proven to be a sound commercial thesis. Next, let's talk about the important pillar of partnerships to EVgo's market leadership and financial position. EVgo has a long history in cultivating lasting business relationships with marquee partners that create meaningful commercial win-wins. On the OEM side, you've heard us discuss GM, Toyota, Subaru, and Nissan in particular, and the countless brand name retail partnerships like Target, Safeway, Kroger, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Lowe's, Chase Bank, and the recent addition, Chipotle, where on-site fast charging creates foot traffic for brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants. EVGO's partnerships with utilities and government funders are equally important financial contributors to our growth to date, and we expect them to continue to be. With respect to our current auto manufacturer partners, OEMs provide EVGO with capital funding to offset development costs. They create and pay for fast-charging credit programs to attract EV drivers to EVgo, or they procure EVgo's proprietary software solutions to enhance their EV drivers' experience. And with the OEM investment in EVs on the rise, we're hopeful EVgo's collaboration with the OEMs will deepen further. GM, the number one U.S. carmaker in 2022 and one of EVgo's landmark partners, is investing more than $35 billion in electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles over the next several years. In February, GM committed to producing about 400,000 EVs during 2024, a stepping stone to meet its goal of reaching annual production of 1 million EVs by 2025. GM has announced they will have nine EV models available in the U.S. by the end of this year, including versions of the popular Chevy Silverado pickup truck as well as the Equinox and Blazer SUVs. Nissan accelerated its EV plans in the U.S. and committed nearly $18 billion to electrify more of its overall lineup. Nissan plans to introduce 19 EVs by 2030, an increase from its original goal of 15. They expect 44% of total sales will be electric by then. Toyota, building on their introduction of the fully electric BZ4X last year, is investing $35 billion in EVs globally. Similarly, Subaru, which introduced the Solterra last year, expects to offer several more EV models by 2025 as it continues to ramp its investments in electrification. With EVgo being leveraged to growth in EVs on the road, these are particularly exciting commitments from EVgo's partner, OEM. Another important area is rideshare. where EVgo's partnerships with both Lyft and Uber continue to deliver both network throughput and revenue, as well as positive environmental benefits to the communities in which drivers on their platform live and work. As we shared before, rideshare drivers are ideal customers for fast charging. A rideshare driver typically drives more in a day than most people do in a week, and they need to be able to charge fast so they can get back on the road. With such a user profile, we see Uber and Lyft drivers increasing utilization on our network significantly, with Q1 throughput more than tripling from a year ago. Both Uber and Lyft are great partners and are heavily marketing the benefits of EVs for both their drivers and their riders. Uber's comfort electric option is now available in nearly 40 cities throughout North America, an important step in the company's effort to reach an easy-only fleet by 2030. Likewise, Lyft is helping drivers make the switch to EVs, offering a cash bonus for drivers who offer at least 50 rides using a qualified EV. Site hosts are also important partners at EVgo. We provide the charging, our site host partners offer great amenities while a driver charges, and our relationships with these marquee partners are deepening. Through our sophisticated network planning tool, EVgo has identified literally thousands of locations across America where shareholder value could be created if EVgo builds a fast charging station at that partner's site. Earlier today in our earnings release, EVgo announced we have entered into a new agreement to expand our collaboration with Chevron, first launched in 2015 to develop EV charging sites in major California markets. EVgo will now offer Chevron and Texaco locations across the U.S. turn-key fast charging solutions with a variety of ownership models, including EVgo Extend. There are more than 8,000 Chevron and Texaco retail stations across the U.S. that will have access to EVgo's expertise and solutions, including fast chargers up to 350 kilowatts. Under the agreement, EVgo will provide hardware, design, and construction of charging at these sites, as well as operations and maintenance, networking, and software solutions. Chevron and its independently owned retailer and marketer network will also be well positioned to take advantage of the funding available through the government's National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program. With Chevron as the latest example of a deepening retailer partnership, EVgo is excited about the opportunity to bring more convenient fast-charging options to EV drivers wherever they need to be. And on fleet, The deepening of partner relationships is again the theme for this quarter, with additional sites added by two of EVgo's current fleet partners. MHX, a Class 8 truck fleet, and a national food and beverage company are each building their second EVgo dedicated fleet charging site, with each also using EVgo Optima as their fleet management software. While it's still early days in fleet electrification, we're excited to have EVgo's business grow alongside the EV investments fleet operators are making as more vehicles become available to them. EVgo's partnership with government policymakers is critical to our success as well. And the federal government recently announced it is taking more bold action to spur even faster growth of electrification. On top of the investments under the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the Inflation Reduction Act that we discussed on our last earnings call, in April, the Biden administration announced a tighter overall regulatory framework for the auto industry, including new vehicle emission standards through 2032. Once the new emission standards are in place, the EPA estimates that EVs could account for 60% of all new passenger car sales by 2030 and 67% by 2032. Notably, this would surpass even DNS forecasts. Now, returning to the $5 billion in federal funding through the NEVI program that I just mentioned, the latest is that this particular tailwind is more like a tail breeze at the moment, directionally terrific, but moving more slowly than originally indicated by government officials. The status is this. No states have made NEVI awards yet. Several states have released RFPs and are reviewing proposals from EVGO and others. And the vast majority of states haven't yet solicited proposals from the industry. partially because the state's original program design needed to incorporate the final program guidelines and Buy America requirements that the federal government issued in February. Notwithstanding the current time lag, however, EVGO remains excited about the potential to apply NEVI funds to both owned assets and stations deployed under EVGO Extend, with the majority of financial benefits likely to be realized in 2024 and beyond. Similarly, we remain enthusiastic about the opportunities for the expansion and extension of 30C tax credits under the IRA. But while new guidance for the consumer vehicle tax credits have been issued, the IRS has not yet issued any further implementation guidance for the 30C infrastructure tax credit. The industry is eagerly awaiting Treasury's guidance. And finally, let me turn to the third pillar of EVGO's success, technology innovation. We've been a technology leader in the EV charging space, and innovation continues to be an important differentiator for EVGo, creating value for drivers and for deepening and widening our own competitive moat. I mean, think about it. Now that we can all do one-click ordering on Amazon, or cashless car service with an app, or electronic boarding passes when we fly, it's sometimes hard to remember the olden times, really less than 10 years ago, when we had to place orders by phone, or get cash from an ATM, or stand in a long line at the airport to get a paper boarding pass. The EV industry is young, and our aim at EVgo is to make the EV charging experience as seamless as one-click ordering. This requires a highly sophisticated approach to our own technology. While we don't manufacture the charging hardware, we painstakingly specify the attributes of each charging product we deploy. undertaking rigorous pre-market testing in our lab related to charger performance, interoperability, and reliability. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, EVgo hosted research leaders from a number of the Department of Energy's national laboratories for a detailed run-through of the anatomy of a charging session and the industry-wide imperatives for creating uniform reliability and enhanced customer experience. As you've heard me say, EVgo's fast chargers are complex machines, that run hundreds of thousands of lines of code and connect in real time to our network management platform and customer-facing applications, which in turn run millions of lines of code and integrate dozens of additional platforms across the EV ecosystem, such as payment processing, industry enrolling partners, and EV OEMs, the correct functioning of all of which is essential to creating an exemplary customer experience. Practically speaking, EV chargers close to 50 different models of EVs on our network today, each with its own unique charging behavior governed by battery performance and software. A technology marriage has to work not just between EV goes charging hardware and full software stack, but also between our EV chargers and the hardware and software of the EV itself, and between EV chargers and driver cell phones, and between EV chargers and utilities delivering the electricity to the chargers. and between EV chargers and site host retailers, and between the EV charging networks with whom we interoperate. At EVgo, we welcome these demands, and in fact, we've upped the ante, looking beyond basic functionality. We created Auto Charge Plus so that drivers can charge their car without swiping a credit card or tapping an app. We built EVgo reservations so a driver can be sure a charger is available when they need one. We built EVgo inside so that OEMs could help their customers find the closest charging station in the dash of their EV. We built pay with PlugShare to both find chargers and help manage charging, which we are currently piloting at all of EVgo's chargers in the LA area. We've partnered with Amazon so that a driver will soon be able to ask Alexa to help them find a charger. And we built EVgo Advantage to give drivers special deals while they charge. And today announced the latest offering here, entering into a new agreement with Audible to bring trial memberships to EVgo customers later in 2023, delivering audio books to EV drivers while they charge. From deploying the first 350 kilowatt charger in the US to pioneering power sharing technology to where we are today, EVgo is setting the benchmarks of what the EV driver experience should be and what our B2B partners will count on when serving their EV driving customers. With innovation in our DNA, you can bet there's more good stuff to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to EVgo CSO, Olga, to give more detail on first quarter results.

Thank you, Cathy. EVgo continues to build on our track record of growth and execution in the first quarter of 2023. Evigo added about 220 new stalls to our network during the quarter, and stalls in operation or under construction were approximately 3,100 at quarter end. Both active engineering and construction stall development pipelines ended the quarter at around 3,500 stalls. First quarter revenue of $25.3 million grew 200%. 29% year over year. This significant increase in revenue was primarily driven by continued execution of our EVGO extend contract with Pilot Flying J in partnership with General Motors and growing charging revenue. Adjusted gross margin declined from 37.2% in the first quarter of 2022 to 25.3% in the first quarter of 2023 due to accelerated revenue recognition of regulatory credits in Q1 2022 and lower LCFS pricing this year. Adjusted gross margin of 25.3% in the first quarter of 2023 improved versus the fourth quarter of 2022 due to annual breakage revenue recognition in the network revenue OEM business line of approximately 2.1 million. Adjusted G&A as percent of revenue declined from 273% in the first quarter of 2022 to 105% in the first quarter of 2023, illustrating the leverage EVGO continues to realize with investments in GNA, both administrative and growth-driven payroll and non-payroll investments. We reported adjusted EBITDA of negative $20.1 million in the first quarter of 2023 versus negative $18.2 million in Q1 2022. Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash were $163.8 million as of March 31, 2023. CapEx was $65.2 million during the first quarter as EVGO continued to execute against our long-term charger deployment plan. Roughly 50% of this number was driven by equipment prepayments and delivery for the rest of 2023 needs. Such CapEx levels are not representative of this year's quarterly run rate. In April, EVGO raised $5.7 million in net proceeds by issuing approximately 890,000 shares of Class A common stock during at-the-market equity offerings. We anticipate using the ATM opportunistically going forward, and we have 183.5 million of capacity remaining under the ATM program. Now looking at network trends in the first quarter. As auto manufacturers release new models of EVs and ramp production, electric vehicles in operation, or VIOs, increases steadily, driving EVgo revenues as EVgo's business model is centered around the leverage to EV adoption, as Cassie mentioned. At the end of 2022, there were 2.2 million EVs in operation, and it is estimated that during the first quarter of 2023, this climbed by another 300,000 EVs to 2.5 million overall on the U.S. roads. EVGO's network throughput continued to significantly outpace our operational stall growth and EV VIO growth. Total kilowatt hours dispensed were 17.9 million, a 124% year-over-year increase compared to operational stall growth of 33% and EVVIO growth of 53% over the same time period. This is driven by an increasing contribution of rideshare traffic on our network. As a reminder, an average commuter drives 11,000 miles a year. An average rideshare driver drives 40 to 60,000 miles a year when driving full time. and relies much more on DC charging. Network throughput also rose as a result of increased EV battery sizes and higher reliance on public charging by our newer retail customers versus early adopters who relied mostly on home charging. Average monthly throughput per active customer has increased by more than a third over the last 12 months. Avigo markets with high AV adoption rates continue to demonstrate solid utilization levels. California shows consistent double-digit utilization, with Los Angeles being the top market and posting 14.4% utilization in Q1. Nationally, key markets in Texas, Florida, and Nevada are among top 10 performers, with consistent double-digit utilizations as well. When looking at top-performing stalls on EVGO network, all in high EV adoption rates markets, we're clearly observing that they are already in line with our learned term per stall annual revenue target. Average revenue per stall is expected to further increase driven by high utilization with more EVs on the roads and higher charge rates of the EVs themselves. When taking a look at top 10% stalls and top 20% stalls measured by utilization on our whole network, as Cathy mentioned, we're observing consistent utilization in excess of 25% and 20% respectively. clearly signaling potential for additional markets to realize such levels with increasing EV adoption. The average charge rate realized at EVgo sites is increasing due to improving battery capabilities of the EVs and EVgo's ongoing efforts to switch to higher-powered equipment. These higher average charge rates on our network mean more kilowatt-hour dispensed every hour when somebody is charging, driving profitability of our projects up. Average network charge rate is poised for an increase over time, further driven by new vehicles with bigger batteries coming online. Such network trends are reinforcing our thesis on the business being leveraged to EV adoption, and proving the advantages of our scalable business model underpinned by attractive public network project economics. As a reminder, we deploy capital following rigorous investment criteria and underwrite our portfolio to robust double-digit pre-tax unlevered IRRs. For the assets deployed in the next 24 months, We expect our CapEx per stall to be between 130,000 and 150,000, with roughly 60% of it being labor and materials and the remainder being equipment with an eight to 10 year useful life assumed. Useful life range depends on the type of charger deployed and the site type. CapEx per stall is anticipated to decline as we near 2030, driven by the industry learning curve on the equipment side. Offsetting the capital cost is funding from partner automakers and or grant funding at the local, state, or federal government level. As is central to our business thesis and the commercial opportunity in front of us, EVGO plans to continue to grow our public network as EV adoption increases. The upshot is that when there are 40 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads, EVGO expects to operate 25,000 to 30,000 public stalls, all underwritten to our internal profitability hurdles. As we discussed during our last earnings call, The public network is our core business and is expected to contribute 75% to 80% of EVGO revenues over time. Our fleet hub, expand, and ancillary businesses will remain natural and accretive complements to our core business model, providing an optimal risk return profile to EVGO. EVGO is affirming our full-year revenue guidance of $105 to $150 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative 78 to negative $60 million. We expect to have a total of 3,400 to 4,000 DC fast charging stalls in operation or under construction at the end of 2023. As a reminder, this metric includes PFJ stalls. Given the variability of revenue recognition timing of several of our large partner agreements, we anticipate some sequential fluctuations in revenue, in particular on the extended revenue line. For the second quarter 2023, our network throughput is increasing compared to Q1, and we expect sequential revenue growth in our core charging business throughout 2023. With this, I will turn the call over to the operator for questions.

As a reminder, in order to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Please limit your question to one initial and one follow-up question. And our first question will come from Gabe Dowd. Your line is open.

Thanks. Morning, Kathy and Olga and everyone. Thanks for all the prepared remarks. I guess I was hoping we could maybe just revisit some of the comments around CapEx and how 1Q is not really representative of the quarterly run rate. So maybe Olga, could you just help us understand how that trends moving forward? And then also, what does that mean to 2024 stalls if you're not prepaying for as much equipment this year, given the step down in capital?

Yeah, so that's a good question. Thanks so much, Gabe. So let me start from the start. We already paid roughly $70 million for 2023 assets last year. We just spent $60 million, a little over $60 million for the first quarter this year. Most equipment which was prepaid will be used for 2023 assets. Some of that equipment will be used for 2024 assets. So there is a mix, obviously heavily loaded towards 2023 usage, but there is a 2024 usage. The quarterly capex is expected to go down. However, that does not mean that we will not be preparing for 2024. We will. We will start doing it in Q3 and Q4. And we will land the year with assets under construction in line with our 2024 expectation. So we're not worried about that. And even, again, those are quite large amounts we already spent for 2023 assets, as you can judge by looking at first quarter and how much we spent on them last year. So it all makes sense for us. It all positioned in us for the optimal cash spent and the optimal start of 2024 in terms of targeted stalls and operations.

Got it. Thanks, Olga. That's helpful. So then, again, I guess the $164 million or so on the balance sheet, that's enough to get you through to 2024? Is that right?

Through the majority of 2024, correct. So the same guidance we gave or the same notion we gave during our last call, that's enough cash to stretch through the majority of 2024. Okay.

Understood. Great. Thanks. Just a quick follow-up. You mentioned, Kathy, the NEVI maybe being a tail breeze and maybe being a bit slower than anticipated, but could you maybe just give us some of the Buy America compliant issues around the hardware, and can you maybe give us an update on where your suppliers are in that respect in terms of onshoring some U.S. production? Thanks, everyone.

Yeah, thanks, Gabe. So we're, well, look, our two suppliers that we talked about last time, Delta and Cignet, have factories underway, and every indication is that they're full speed ahead, and that's all going to plan. We should have more specificity for you probably by the next earnings call about the guidance. We're still waiting for some guidance from the Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Department. folks on certain of the Buy America provisions. We've also got, again, Jonathan Levy, our public policy expert, on the phone. Jonathan, did you want to add anything?

I guess just that last point, Cathy, you were making is that FHWA has indicated to a number of policy folks that they're getting a lot of questions about their Buy America guidance, and therefore they're planning on issuing an FAQ at some point soon. So we've been very engaged with folks in the administration about the kind of unintended consequences as well as the practical realities of Buy America as currently done. As Kathy has noted in every forum, we've been working with our suppliers to do U.S. manufacturing for a long time, and so we're still working assiduously with them. But in the meantime, there's some clarity that we're expecting to hopefully come soon from the federal government.

Got it. Got it. Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks, everyone.

And the next question comes from James West. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Kathy, Olga.

Good morning. Hi, Jim.

So, Kathy or Olga, what's the gating factor now in terms of your build out of additional infrastructure, additional stalls? Is it capital? Is it the utilities? I know you don't want to be too far ahead of the vehicles arriving. But kind of what's the – if you could push it harder and go faster, what could hold you up from that? Or why would you not push it harder, I guess?

So to your point about the utilities, the utilities are a – they continue to be a near-term gating item, but it's almost like a predictable gating item now. So we had – last quarter, we had a couple hundred waiting utility energizations. And again, as I think I've said before, James, I mean, that's just a matter of time. And some of them have been waiting for the utilities to show up to do the final inspection for six weeks. But they eventually will show up. So that's not a near-term gating item. I mean, we've got a macro tailwind in the sector that is obviously pushing up into the right, as you told me many, many times. We have identified thousands of prospective stalls that will create NPV for us. with our partners. One of the reasons I lean so far into our marquee partnerships at EVgo is that they continue to bring us good prospects. So over the next five years, yeah, we could put more good capital to work. But at the moment, we've got a great plan to continue to build and go up and to the right for 23. And we got the capital to get us through all of 23 and most of 24. So it's just really a question of how fast do we want to lean in to be kind of going at the right pace given the macros of the overall economy.

Okay, it makes sense. And then I know you've been testing a lot of different pricing strategies over the last several quarters. I was curious how that's been going. I know lower pricing at off-peak times, things like that. Could you maybe update us on how those plans are progressing and kind of what you're seeing in terms of customer behavior?

Yeah, sure. So what we're seeing in terms of customer behavior is is a very strong affinity towards subscription plans. So we have three different tiers and continue to kind of experiment because the subscription plan usually doesn't just include actual subscription plus access to cheaper per kilowatt hour rate, but also some other perks like double amount of points or free reservations. So we continue to experiment with those bundles, but we see a very strong uptake on all three different subscription types we have. So that means Subscriptions are here to stay and will be an essential part of our business going forward. And in terms of the time of use rates, we're clearly observing that our more price sensitive customer segments, such as rideshare, they're very, very reactive towards those signals. And we see how they're altering their behavior to show up at our network at cheaper times. However, when we're looking at a kind of like daily commuters, we don't, we see some response depending on locations. And then there is a wide range of maybe more affluent locations across the key cities where customers are just not as price sensitive as we originally thought. So all of our seasons has remained true and we continue to define those and our chief revenue officer who joined us a few months ago. That's one of the main areas of her focus. She spends a lot of time on it. So we'll be updating the market as we learn more interesting insights from that.

Okay, got it. Thanks.

The next question comes from Doug Becker. Your line is open.

Thank you. So the record number of installations was highlighted during the quarter. You just addressed some of the gating items. Is it reasonable to assume installations increase each quarter over the course of the year based on what you're seeing today?

We've got a plan that is probably relatively stable over this year in terms of numbers that are going to go live, but the practical reality is that it always bounces around a bit. Like the gating item, the utilities, it's nearly impossible for us to predict which utility inspectors are going to show up in which regions of America and which won't. So we've got a general plan. We know we've got the target for the full year that we're confident of hitting. That might just bounce around a little bit as we go through the course of the year.

That completely makes sense. And then the follow-up, kind of a pointed question, but consensus revenue is toward the high end of the full-year guidance range. Is that reasonable based on everything you're seeing, and particularly in light of your commentary on the NEVI program and just the volatility with PFJ that you've alluded to previously?

Yeah, we won't be refining our range at this time. We guided the market only a few weeks ago during our Q4 call. Not much of our new information has come in since then, but we probably next time we speak, we will have a more refined strategy to inform the market on how the rest of the year will look like and and everybody can judge vis-a-vis consensus but that this time will remain committed to our wider range um kind of repeating all the reasons we explained last time in terms of Baba qualification pfj execution and some still volatility on EV sales front EV sales started off the year quite strong We don't see any recession signs, but we are observing. We're still not even halfway through the year. So at this time, we won't comment on a more narrow range of our guidance than we already gave.

Fair enough. Kathy, Olga, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Bill Peterson. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. You saw the EDGO team at Action Expo last week, and I'm sure you had a number of conversations with fleets, but I guess specifically, are the fleets really focusing on the Xtend offering, or are they more like your rideshare and autonomous vehicle partners that maybe prefer to use your own owned and operated network?

Yeah, I'm going to toss that one to Jonathan. Jonathan.

Yeah, it's a great question. So I think When we think about the Xtend offering, we typically think about it as a white label offering for retail. But you can think of the same kind of logic about the flexibility that EVgo has for our fleet offerings. You're very familiar with what we do with Uber and Lyft, where they access our public network. But we also have this flexibility on where is it that we own chargers that customers operate, that customers use, sometimes at dedicated stations like we've been doing with the autonomous vehicle fleet. But most of the folks looking to electrify their depots in the fleet space they're looking to own the charging themselves. And so that is a little bit more like an analog to that extend business model. And I think some of that is driven by the incentive structures. A lot of the fleets doing early pilots are pursuing funding for those projects, which gives them an incentive to buy it, whereas we do know there are some others out there that will have more of an interest of more of a charging as a service offering that Evigo also has, where we retain ownership and the customers then can get more of a monthly fee model. So I hope that answers the question. The concept is being there's different solutions for different fleets, but the majority of the depot fleet operators are looking to own that charging themselves at this point.

Sorry, Bill, I was just going to add, like, we've got a couple of contracts with the autonomous fleet guys where they want, where we own the assets. So again, it's what we've said sort of continuously that we will, we will meet the customers where they are as long as we can create a nice return profile for EVgo commensurate with the risks that we're taking. And so far, we can do the Allah extends behind the fence with some fleets and we can do the asset ownership model with others.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. Okay, that makes sense to me. Second question, so you talked about utilization and Los Angeles being the highest market. But you can give us a feel for where that is and maybe looking ahead, where would you want utilization to level out at? Would you prefer to drive it higher in LA, for example, or would you want to kind of keep it where it is and just kind of add sites to kind of match the growth of cars in the market? Just trying to get a feel for how you, especially coming out of the pandemic, where you would like utilization to be ideally to not create too much friction, but obviously give you the best return.

yeah the los angeles is uh i mentioned that during my prepared remarks is a little over 14 percent for the for the q1 that is one of our best performing markets um in terms of where we want utilization to be over time we think midterm when we underwrite assets of course we want it to be higher and we already observe high utilizations in certain pockets of our network, like top 10% of our performance stall consistently illustrate utilizations in excess of 25%. So that's probably a good indicator where the overall network can go over time. Now when we think about near term, here our focus is on growing the network and growing the throughput on the network. There could be some near term fluctuations in utilization well let's say there is a quarter when we build a little faster than the throughput has grown now that wasn't this particular quarter but that quarter can't happen and that is okay with us so in a near term when the network is still small and we're really focused on positioning for upcoming growth you could see some fluctuations midterm to long term we of course are very much focused on growing utilization and expect that all of the key markets will start showing high utilization levels in the next few years on a consistent basis.

Yeah, and just, Bill, I'll just remind you that we have, like in the early days of the MAVEN program, we had some charging stations right in the Bay Area where you live, which had over 60% utilization because of rideshare drivers. Now, that was actually, that was a lot. But one of the reasons that we have pioneered both the innovative pricing schemes to sort of attract people to off-peak hours and the reservations is that there is not a – it's not as if we want to stop utilization at 20%, right? So what we want to do is enable the assets to get used optimally by using technology to allow people to go when they want to go, be sure that a charge is going to be there.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the call, Alex.

The next question comes from Maheep Mandoli. Your line is open.

Hey, morning, Maheep Mandoli from Credit Suisse. Thanks for taking the questions here. Could you give some more details around your arrangement with Chevron and the XTEN business with it? I presume most of the Chevron gas stations of that 8,000 are owned by small retailers. I just want to understand how would you kind of, what would be the go-to market strategy there and Any exclusivities on EV charges for that network? Thanks.

Hey, Jonathan, why don't you do this since you were involved in it?

Yeah, happy to, and thanks for the question, Maheeb. I think the way to think about this to start is this is a master service agreement with Chevron, right? So that puts us in the position of when those retailers want to do EV charging, we can be that first call, but there will need to be individual agreements executed with them on top of that. And additionally, You should think of it as an opportunity for Chevron and Texaco retailers to be either EVGO site hosts or be able to leverage EVGO Xtend. And that's actually a pretty sizable denominator then of locations that could add charging either directly through EVGO ownership, especially as we see the ones that are along Nevi corridors might be a really good fit for those public funding opportunities.

Got it.

And any thoughts on when we could expect the first deals with the retailers?

I think it's going to depend on those individual retailers. I mean, you rightly pointed out that those are independent operators, and so as a result, those are going to be some subsequent conversations underneath this master site agreement that we're working together on.

But just to add a little bit of color, Maheep, if one of the things that this Chevron, the expansion of our Chevron relationships, arose in part because those franchisees are excited about the next frontier, which is providing fueling for EVs. So it's not as if we need to go door knocking and making cold calls to these gas station owners across America. They're excited about it.

Got it.

That's a great point, Kathy. One of the things that I talk about is the fact that a couple of years ago, the National Association of Convenience Stores and the Fuels Institute were doing a lot of information gathering, but weren't very excited about EVs. And now you can't go to any of their conferences without it being mainly about the excitement about EVs, EV charging, the importance of accessing that demographic as a huge growth and valuable audience for them.

Right. Then maybe the second question, just on cash needs here. We saw an ATM issuance this quarter, or in April, rather. Just trying to understand how to think about that through the rest of the year, given all the things you talked about, CapEx plans and repayments and extend and maybe over here. Thanks.

Yeah, we're using ATM opportunistically. We, last quarter, we didn't raise that much as the trading window was quite short considering the 10K file and happens a little later in the quarter. So, And we obviously limit it on the use of ATM with the daily volumes. But again, we'll access it opportunistically. We'll access any other form of finance and capital opportunistically as well. So I'll leave it at that.

Thanks, Olga. I'll take the rest of my time.

The next question comes from Alex Rebell. Your line is open.

Hey, Kathy, Olga, thanks for taking the question. Appreciate at the outset all the commentary about utilization and throughput and some of the drivers there. I'm curious, just, you know, because, you know, to your point, Kathy, we're sort of in very early stages of Uber offering Comfort Electric and I think still sort of coming out of, you know, the COVID era of people not doing rideshare in the first place. You know, where would you say we are sort of in the stage of that piece of your, you know, sort of network picking up? And also curious, I think, Olga, you mentioned the acceptance rate on EVs driving higher revenue per stall or per charging session as well. We're definitely seeing that EVs can clearly take a lot more charge than they used to. Curious if you can unpack sort of those two drivers a little further and where you think we are in the process of those things ramping up. Thanks.

Yeah, on the Uber Lyft stuff, we were absolutely in the early innings and then both Uber and Lyft have committed to going all electric by 2030 in their fleets. And my goodness gracious, Jonathan, do you happen to know what percentages, single digit percentages that are EVs now with them? So it is very, very early days. So the fact that we've tripled year on year from this last quarter to the previous year, It's a great sign. I mean, the Uber and Lyft drivers charge seven times more and they need fast charging than the regular retail drivers. So we're really, really excited about that one. Olga, why don't you take the second part?

Well, I'm sorry, before you do, the thing that I think is fascinating is the fact that Uber and Lyft both made that 2030 goal. And both said that right now they're on pace to hit it by 2025. And I think you take that, you juxtapose it with the regulatory drivers, especially in California, for more zero emission passenger miles traveled. And it's a great opportunity, even though it is early days, to continue to see growth in that segment.

Yeah. And on charge rate, which you refer to acceptance rate, we refer to the charge rate. It's for everybody on the call. It's a pace at which the car can accept kilowatt hours flowing into its battery. That is increasing absolutely in line with our expectations. We're doing very detailed modeling, looking at all the upcoming models and projecting vehicle mixes and interlaning with our network, kind of trying to discern what charge rates we will be exhibiting. And we are definitely in line with what we were expecting. And we are pretty confident that number will continue to go up. with new models being introduced into the market, and also newer models becoming a majority of vehicles driving around, kind of displacing the older vehicles, which are much slower. So very great trend, and we'll continue to ride it at EVGO going forward.

Got it. Appreciate the color. One just quick housekeeping, I guess, you know, question for me, just as far as the pipeline, I know that does tend to move around a little bit as far as the active development pipeline, but narrowed in this quarter versus last. I'm just curious if you can help us frame like exactly how that's defined, why it's, you know, narrowed in. I know some others were asking as far as you know, your sort of, you know, hurdle rate or how you look at future investment and if that's at play, but just if you can help as far as why that moved in quarter over quarter.

Yeah, so our pipeline, everything which has high probability to be billed, everything which is green-lighted and a little bit before green-lighted has high likelihood to be green-lighted by our internal hurdles. is included into the pipeline. That pipeline is quite large, as you could see. That's 3,500 stalls, and that's on top of stalls in operational under construction. So all of those stalls are the stalls we need to develop over time. And right now, the focus is on execution and construction versus increasing the pipeline. We think the pipeline is very strong for the upcoming year or so. And that's why you'll probably not see as much of a pipeline growth versus you should expect to see more stalls going operational.

Got it. Appreciate the color. I'll take the rest offline. Thanks, guys.

The next question comes from Andre Shepard. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Kathy. Good morning, Olga. Congratulations on the quarter, and thanks for taking our question. A lot of my questions have been asked. Maybe I want to touch on liquidity for a second. So $164 million roughly in liquidity versus about $247 million in Q4 of last year. That's about an $80 million, I guess, reduction in cash. I just want to better understand, so, you know, funded through the majority of 2024, help me connect the dots. I mean, are we including, you know, the opportunistic ATMs throughout the year? Are we including NEVI funding in that assumption? I'm just trying to get a better understanding.

Yeah.

Sure.

So, Q1 burn was roughly a little over 80 million, as you correctly pointed out. What I would like to emphasize that the operational burn was only 19 million and the rest was capital expenditures, so 65 million. And that 65 million, as I already mentioned earlier in a call answering Gabe's question, that nearly half of it is equipment prepayment for the rest of 2023 equipment needs and actually some of the 2024 needs. So you should expect that capital expenditure number not to be um the run rate for the rest of the year not to be in line with q1 but actually to be lower so that i think kind of will help will help you connect connect the dots a little bit and on uh we do not include atm as part of our cash plan and that is kind of cherry on the cake it's on top however regarding the funds and and when we talk about the funds and navy is only one of many sources of funds and EVGO is accessing. We've been in a grand game for many years now and been accessing municipal level grants and state grants for a while. We continue to do that. Specifically, NAVY, as Kathy mentioned in her remarks, we don't expect much of an inflow of NAVY funds this year. We'll probably see it next year, but we do expect a lot of other grant programs influence flowing into the EVGO this year. And also, let me remind you that we have an agreement with General Motors where for every stall we put in operation, they pay roughly $33,000 to us, which they already did in both Q4 and Q1 and can continue to do it as well. So that's another cash inflow which is available to us and it's part of our cash planning.

Got it. Okay, thanks, Olga. That's very helpful. So, in other words, the cash burn should be significantly lower for the remaining of the year, given that the majority, like you said, was on the CapEx side, and that accounts for the majority of this year and some into next year. So, the operational cash burn perhaps will be similar, but overall cash burn should be significantly less than what it was in Q1, if I understood that correctly.

Correct. So let me just also clarify something. So the capex is roughly half-half on now maybe a little 40-45% equipment, 40-45% equipment, 60-65% labor. So when I say that we prepaid most of the equipment, we haven't finished on the labor side because we need to put stalls in operations. And so the labor cost kind of will continue, and we will also start doing some work in Q3 and Q4 and 2024 assets. So you'll definitely see some labor preparing. The rate will go down, but just to clarify, it's not that we won't have any top expense and we'll have some, it's just going to be much lower than what you saw in Q1.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Maybe my last question, you know, regarding NEVI, I mean, it must be frustrating that we know by now the amounts that each state has allocated over the, you know, per each year, over the five years. I mean, is there anything that can be done to try to accelerate that process? I know it doesn't obviously rely on, depend on you, but I mean, is there anything that can be done, you know, as an industry or individually to try to accelerate that process? You know, again, given that we have the numbers, it's just a matter of the actual bits being deployed, which sounds like 2024 will be the earliest.

Yeah, Jonathan, you want to take this? We spent a lot of time on this, and as both Jonathan and I are former government officials in prior lives, so we are familiar with the to-ing and fro-ing, but Levi, what would you say?

Yeah, it's a good question, Andrea, because I think, first of all, I don't want to give short shrift to the states that have moved. There are a couple that have, and we've submitted applications to a number of the states that have already opened. including some states that moved really promptly ahead. But you have to keep in mind that there isn't one NEVI program. There are these 50 individual NEVI corridor programs. So each state gets to decide the specific parameters. And the federal government was a bit delayed on finalizing their technical minimum standards as well as the Buy America guidance, which meant that some states that may have otherwise been ready to go, they were then having to revise their plan or make other adjustments. And so we're expecting more to come. So there are still some states that we think will make awards in 23, but the question is, when do the projects go? You're on reimbursements for most of those types of programs. So the funding, as Kathy and Olga have said, we expect the bulk of that to be 2024 and beyond. So what we can do about it is continue to engage with them both directly on a state DOT level as well as through organizations like AASHTO, the American State Highway Transportation Officials Organization. And that's what we and our policy team continue to do, working both with the whole industry and directly to make sure that they have our best practices from Connect the WASPs and other ways to know, here's a great way to run these programs. As Olga has said, we've been in the grant game for a long time, whether it's NEVI, the California grants that we announced last quarter, or earlier this year, rather, or the utility make ready programs that are all important opportunities for funding. All of those will continue, and the timing will be a little bit of an ongoing thing that we have to keep incorporating. Got it.

Okay. Thanks, Kathy. Thanks, Olga. Thanks, Jonathan. Congrats on the quarter again. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thanks, Andre. And our final question will come from Brett Castelli. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just curious in an update on the EV go renew program and sort of upgrading those older 50-kilowatt chargers, kind of where are we at in that process?

Yeah, Brad, so we've got the program is underway, and we're going to be upgrading hundreds of them over the course of the year, and the program is on track. I mean, and what we're doing is as well as we're actually integrating some communications efforts into EV Go Renew. So what we've discovered is that sometimes the chargers are at fault, but sometimes there's an opportunity for driver education on how to actually make the charging work more effectively. So the program is becoming all-encompassing, as I think I described last time, and it's on track. It's on track. We've got a few hundred that we're going to be doing over the course of the year.

Yeah, and I would like to add that as of the end of the first quarter, as a result of the new efforts and as a result of us continuing to deploy high-power chargers, those 50s for the first time were less than half of our network. So we could already clearly see in the numbers as well that the efforts bear the fruit.

Okay. And then any color just in terms of like CapEx for this year associated with that program, just kind of ballpark?

We do not give guidance on that number, but it should be higher, quite a bit higher than what we reported last year for that.

Okay. Thank you.

At this time, I will turn the call back over to Kathy Zoids, CEO, for closing remarks.

Well, thanks, everyone. Look, EVGO had a great first quarter of 2023. Our strategy is showing the early proof points that it's working with throughput growing massively and it's exceeding EVDIO growth and our own stall growth. The outlook for EVGO and the opportunity for fast charging in the U.S. is getting better and faster. We believe our business is on a trajectory to scale rapidly and deliver really nice returns, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter about the progress. Thanks, everyone.

And this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.