This investment carries considerable risks and may lead to a loss of the entire assets invested. Projected returns cannot be guaranteed and may be lower than expected.
ENIO, an Austrian start-up from Vienna, operates a network of charging stations for electric cars throughout Europe. To meet the high demand for such charging stations, ENIO is establishing a crowd solution for charging electric cars. This solution consists of inexpensive charging stations that homeowners and property owners may install on the wall of their building and that are connected to the Internet. This cooperative charging system for electric cars will be the future of electric mobility, and it includes energy management.
Inexpensive and Powerful Electric Vehicles Are Entering the Market
With an actual reach exceeding 500 km, excellent handling, and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 3 seconds, electric vehicles have become a reality today. Manufacturers of cars for large target groups, such as Renault, Nissan, Ford, and Opel, will launch new cars in 2016 that will convince more people of electric mobility.
Major European car manufacturers like BMW are focusing on electric mobility (source: Automobilwoche issue from 1 December 2015). In Norway, the market share of fully electric cars has already surpassed 20 %, and other countries are catching up.
Major companies from other sectors, such as Apple, Google, and newcomer Faraday, will shortly start developing electric cars, thus increasing the success of electric mobility. In fact, Apple is currently increasing the size of its development team for electric cars to 600 employees.
Electric Mobility Matures...
According to a study by Kienbaum Consultants, the share of electric vehicles in newly registered vehicles will have increased to 7 % by 2020 and to over 30 % by 2030. Consequently, 3.6 million new electric vehicles will be put into operation in the EU in 2030.
According to Statista, the global market for electric vehicles is expected to grow to an annual volume of €300 billion until 2030. Simultaneously, the market for the necessary infrastructure will grow. If one assumes costs of 5 % of the above market volume for the charging infrastructure, the infrastructure market will have grown to €3.5 billion by 2020, to €8.0 billion by 2025, and to €15 billion by 2030.
...and Needs Intelligent Charging Infrastructure
In 2015, we generated approx. €1,000,000 in revenues through our service (software as a service) of connecting charging stations digitally for our clients. We are already operating 1,500 charging stations by various manufacturers, e.g., by ABB, Mennekes, ABL, Efacec, Barth, and Alfazero, throughout Europe.
In December 2015, we secured deals worth roughly €700,000 and a research project including a subsidy worth roughly €370,000 for 2016.
To further strengthen ENIO, we plan to develop another business model in 2016. Indeed, we are developing a cooperative electric charging system called "youCharge." All homeowners and property owners will then be able to get such an electric charging system of their own.
We are supporting large and small businesses as well as private individuals in operating their charging stations. To use our software, clients do not have to install it on their system but can use it online like Facebook. This approach is called "software as a service" or simply "SaaS." Through our SaaS approach, a charging station can quickly and easily be integrated into a European network of charging stations. While following this approach, we are also supporting all major roaming organizations (i.e., HUBJECT, OCA, and ladenetz.de) to ensure hassle-free charging.
Therefore, we are offering our clients all features ranging from navigation to invoicing at a very low rate, which is calculated individually for each charging station and user. We are also offering different service-level contracts, depending on whether clients wish to do everything themselves or let us handle administration completely.
youCharge – One for All, All for One
Our new product youCharge enables all people to operate an electric charging station on their own property. Clients can purchase the charging device necessary for this purpose directly from ENIO. A youCharge contractor connects the charging station with the power supply and installs the entire system. As soon as the charging station ("Wallbox") is operable, it may be used to charge every electric vehicle through its standard connector. Once it has been installed, the new charging station becomes part of the youCharge community. All members can then find it through the youCharge app, reserve it, and charge their car at it. Our system enables drivers of electric vehicles to find a charging station along their route or at their destination, both on the web and through an app. Needless to say, our system also helps drivers find a charging station with the right connector and power.
Moreover, it is important for drivers to know whether a charging station is really available, that is, operable and not currently used. Once drivers have found a suitable charging station, they are directed to this station by the standard navigation system. ENIO also reserves the charging station for the driver so that it is still available at the time of arrival.
After arriving at the charging station, the driver logs in using an RFID access card (RFID cards are contactless cards or buttons similar to the ones used in many access systems) or the ENIO app. In both of the above cases, drivers pay online using their credit card. Alternatively, they may also pay through a text message.
After the payment, charging begins, and the driver may focus on other things, e.g., shopping. If the battery is empty, a complete charge cycle takes between 30 minutes and several hours. Statistically speaking, however, each vehicle running on fossil fuel also remains parked for approx. 23 hours per day. Consequently, charging speed only matters in the case of long-distance trips. Drivers may check the current battery charging status at any time because they can see detailed charging information on their smartphone.
As soon as the charging process is stopped, an invoice is created based on the type of contract. In this way, clients and charging station owners can keep track of all costs and charging processes at any time. The charging time depends both on the power of the charging station and on the urgency of charging the car.
If users agree, our system can automatically control the charging rate of the stations. Depending on whether drivers need to charge their car fast or can do without their car for several hours, the charging rate is variable and can be increased or decreased at will. Users are rewarded for their flexibility in the form of lower charging fees. As a result, there is a great potential of using renewable energy for charging electric cars more frequently.
ENIO has two sources of revenue:
1. Charging Station Management
We are currently generating revenues primarily through the management of charging stations for large and small companies and for the public sector, through projects focusing on the establishment of large and small charging station networks, and through projects in the area of energy metering.
We charge our clients an annual fee for administrating and controlling the charging stations and for invoicing of third parties. This fee is between €36 and €180 per charging station, depending on the service level. On average, we expect to generate €100 in revenues for our service per charging station every year.
In addition to this established business model, through which we are currently generating more than €1,000,000 in revenue per year, we now plan to expand our youCharge service.
2. youCharge
ENIO receives a small share in the revenue from charging for the invoicing services we provide. A high degree of automation, low costs, and a large number of participants enable a high contribution margin. For each charging station, we expect the contribution margin to be between €100 and €150 for installation and another €100 per year for the services we provide.
ENIO has the following advantages:
- The ability and capacity to control a large number of charging stations
- Many satisfied clients – both multi-national businesses and little villages trust in ENIO charging station management
- A high degree of automation provides the basis for fast scalability
Through our existing ENIO software platform, we are able to focus on the fast-growing market very quickly and, unlike our competitors, to prove that this platform is suitable for a large number of charging stations as well. Consequently, we may also quickly focus on future market sectors like our "youCharge" business model of cooperative charging stations.
The combination of ENIO's high degree of automation (which is based on our software), our expertise, and our network provides us with a significant competitive edge. As a result, we can implement and scale up complex projects focusing on networked systems quickly and efficiently.
Our largest global partners are E.ON and Deutsche Telekom. On a local level, we are collaborating with many cities, with Smatrics in Austria, and with Austrian motor clubs ÖAMTC and ARBÖ.
We are also closely collaborating with charging station manufacturers like ABL (in Bavaria) and Alfazero (in Italy), which are also our clients in the areas of system integration and electronic components.
ENIO supports large and small businesses focusing on electric mobility, especially energy suppliers, the automotive sector, and cities, in establishing the necessary infrastructure (B2B).
In the segment of individual electric mobility, where the above businesses are hardly trying to penetrate the market, we are supplementing the market through youCharge and are quickly establishing a dense network of charging stations. In other words, we will establish a B2C network using efficient and cooperative methods in this segment. We expect ENIO to reach approximately 90,000 charging stations and 300,000 users in Europe (30 % of which will be in Germany) by 2020.
ENIO is currently controlling 1,500 charging stations throughout Europe, and we plan to increase this number to approximately 90,000 over the next few years. As early as in the second year of our company's history (2015), we generated revenues of more than €1,060,000.
Based on our existing business model and our in-depth knowledge of charging station management, we have already completed a subsidy project focusing on youCharge (our cooperative charging station project) successfully, and we now plan to expand this segment with the help of the Companists. This expansion will require upgrades to our charging station platform etsWeb in order to integrate specific features of the cooperative system.
In the context of an important subsidy project by the Austrian federal government worth €750,000, which we secured together with our partners in late 2015, we will focus on energy management issues with a special focus on fleet management and intermediate storage in large stationary batteries; such issues are an important part of our energy flow optimization activities.
Moreover, we plan to generate additional revenues through (patented) components for easily connecting vehicles to charging stations and – just like today – through special hardware components for controlling charging stations and energy metering.
From 2018, we also plan to generate additional revenues through advertising services within the specific electric mobility market.
Energy Management – Charging at the Right Time
The problem
When many vehicles simultaneously plug into charging stations in the future, electrical grids will face peak loads. Without energy management, electrical grids could handle those peak loads only if they were upgraded, which would be very expensive. Moreover, there would also need to be more power plants to handle such loads. In that case, however, renewable energy would remain largely unused because, for instance, drivers charge their car when the sun is not shining.
Background information
If all cars in Europe were fully electric cars, demand for electricity would be only 15 % higher than now. If the existing power plants, renewable energy, and the existing electrical grids are used, this demand can still be handled, but only if energy flow is managed intelligently. It is reasonable to assume that drivers plug in their car when they park it. If a car is parked for an extended period of time, charging may be postponed to avoid peak loads without making the process less convenient for drivers.
Charging a car for the average daily trip of 35 km (which equals 7 kWh) takes roughly half an hour. Therefore, charging can be postponed by several hours. The power of good charging stations (and the vehicles connected to them) may be controlled over the Internet by a system working in the background.
The solution
ENIO is developing special software for optimizing energy flow at charging stations. Drivers of electric cars tell ENIO how much and how urgently they want to charge their car. ENIO then optimizes the sequence of charging processes while taking into account drivers' needs, grid infrastructure, and generation of electricity from renewable energy sources. As a result, energy flow is optimized in a way that keeps upgrade costs for electrical grids low and prevents peak loads. For their flexibility, users are rewarded with lower charging fees. Energy suppliers and grid operators, on the other hand, may save significant amounts of money if they use our energy management system, for ENIO enables the more efficient use of (renewable) energy.
If our equity crowdfunding campaign is successful, we will make strategic investments in marketing and product development in 2016, which will lead to a budgeted loss in 2016. Nonetheless, we expect these investments to increase revenues by an average 50 % each year from 2017 and to ensure a continuous increase in EBIT. In this context, reduced liquidity will lead to slower growth of revenues and profits.
€100,000
- Further development of our youCharge software platform and gradual establishment of the cooperative charging system
€300,000
In addition, we will develop and run a market campaign and support strategic locations for the expansion of the charging network. While doing so, we will lend clients charging stations for free and for extended periods if we believe that certain regions can serve as a prime example or, similar to the mobile communication sector, try to cover costs at marginal costs through long-term contracts. We will also use the capital raised through our campaign for marketing activities focusing on advertising our charging station management system through events and PR, and we will expand our sales department.
To be more specific, we plan to focus on the following marketing activities: Participation in trade fairs, guerilla marketing in user forums (on the web and on Xing, Facebook, and LinkedIn), online advertising, and the development of an online store.
€700,000
In addition to the investments listed above, we will add more features to our energy management components.
- Optimization based on weather forecasts
- Variable pricing as a reward for drivers' flexibility
- A trading platform to optimize the sale of the operating reserve
€800,000
In addition to the activities mentioned above, we will increasingly promote our patented connection mechanism through practical projects within the automotive sector and increase revenues and profits by hiring sales staff and better covering strategic markets.
- You can spread the word about electric mobility,
- install charging stations on your own property (e.g. at the fence),
- and become part of the electric charging community.
- Mobility award of the Austrian federal government (Staatspreis Mobilität) 2011 (as "everynear")
- Lower Austrian innovation prize – Ritter von Ghega prize
As ENIO is an Austrian company headquartered in Austria, investments are subject to Austrian tax law. In the case of Austrian private investors or Companists investing through an Austrian joint-stock company [Kapitalgesellschaft], returns from the equity crowdfunding campaign are considered dividend payments and are subject to Austrian capital gains tax (27.50 %). ENIO will withhold these taxes and pay them directly to the tax authority.
Companists investing through an Austrian joint-stock company may deduct the taxes withheld and paid by ENIO from the joint-stock company's corporate income tax [Körperschaftsteuer]. Therefore, Austrian joint-stock companies ultimately do not have to pay any taxes for returns on the investment.
In the case of German private investors and Companists investing through a German joint-stock company, ENIO will also withhold and pay the Austrian capital gains tax of 27.50 %. In accordance with the convention for the avoidance of double taxation between Austria and Germany, German private investors and joint-stock companies may request a refund of 12.50 % of the taxes withheld from the Austrian tax authority in charge.
In Germany, any gross returns on the investment are considered income from capital investment and are subject to German capital gains tax [Kapitalertragsteuer] (25 %) plus solidarity surcharge [Solidaritätszuschlag] (5.5 %) and – if applicable – church tax [Kirchensteuer]. In the case of Companists investing in ENIO through a German joint-stock company, gross returns from equity crowdfunding are subject to German corporate income tax [Körperschaftsteuer] and trade tax [Gewerbesteuer].
In the case of taxation in Germany, both private investors and joint-stock companies may deduct 15 % of the taxes withheld in Austria from their taxes. Consequently, if the Companist requests a refund of the remaining 12.50 % of taxes withheld from the Austrian tax authority, there is no double taxation. German private investors and joint-stock companies have to file their German tax return themselves.
Enio GmbH
Geyschlägergasse 14
1150 Wien
Austria
phone: +43-1-934 66 81 0
cell phone: +43 664 3408460
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