The UK’s weak demand for electric vehicles has raised alarm for investors

Get free updates

Register easily Electric vehicles myFT Digest — delivered straight to your inbox.

The electric-vehicle charger provider, backed by EDF and Legal & General, warned that weak retail demand for EVs in the UK would hit annual earnings, sending shares down 40 percent on Monday morning.

Podpoint, which is majority-owned by EDF and whose shareholders include Legal & General, Schroders and Hargreaves Lansdown, on Monday said a “challenging backdrop” including “recent uncertainty” in the UK EV market was to blame. The forecasted annual results come in below current market estimates.

A government consultation on UK EV sales targets the company launched late last year added to that uncertainty. The consultation follows complaints from car manufacturers that sales of electric vehicles are not growing fast enough to meet quotas.

The UK’s EV quota scheme, launched last year, calls for 80 per cent of car sales to be zero-emissions by the end of the decade, up from 22 per cent by 2024.

Registrations of new EVs jumped 21 percent to a record 382,000 last year, with the UK overtaking Germany for the first time as Europe’s biggest market for battery-powered cars.

However, discounts on EVs cost carmakers billions of pounds to lure customers away from petrol cars. Also, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) trade group warned that demand did not grow “as expected”.

SMMT also pointed to relatively weak sales among private buyers compared to businesses, with only one in 10 private buyers in the UK opting for an EV by 2024.

Pod Point said on Monday that “continued weakness in the private new car segment of the EV market” is affecting trading. As a result, the group said it expects revenue of £53mn in its latest financial year, down from previous guidance of around £60mn.

Net income fell to £5.3mn in the year to the end of December, below previous guidance of £15mn.

Podpoint chief executive Melanie Lane, who previously worked for Shell, said the company “showed good progress at our expense” in 2024, but a weaker-than-expected private EV market had a negative impact on revenues. He has spent the night. It is to report the results of the whole year in April.

Shares fell more than 38 per cent to 10.30p in early trading. The company listed in London in November 2021.

Pod Point sells charging devices for home and workplaces. In its latest results for the six months to the end of June, the group revealed sales of £28.1mn and 242,000 devices installed across the UK.

Drivers’ fears over a lack of charging points and high upfront costs for many EV models are among the factors holding back the UK’s transition, experts say.

In a statement this morning, Podpoint added that EDF remains a “strongly supportive shareholder”.

Additional report by Kana Ingaki