Beam Global President and CEO Desmond Wheatley joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the long-term generation of electric vehicle charging and customers for electric vehicle charging as a component of Biden’s infrastructure agreement.
ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome to Yahoo Finance Live. In today’s segment “The Future of Electric Vehicles,” sponsored through BMW, we take a look at some other issues related to electric cars that can also be overlooked. Of course, you can connect them to the wall, but where does this energy come from?In some cases, it would possibly come from a classic power source that you still have to worry about in terms of emissions and carbon, but also the grid factor and what you can take care of here.
That’s why companies, like our next guest here, Beam Global, are focusing on how they can leverage solar energy to qualify those electric cars through the stations that are built. I am very pleased to welcome with us today Desmond Wheatley, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Beam Global, who joins us as a component of our BMW-sponsored series on the long-term of electric cars.
And Desmond, when you look at it, I think it’s pretty interesting, the generation you have, because you have the solar panel on top, it’s a lot of the electric vehicle there. I mean, tell me about the expansion you’ve noticed in the progression of the sustainable force to force those cars.
DESMOND WHEATLEY: Yes, first of all, thank you very much for having me. It’s great to be here. Yes, that’s why we produce and buy all the electrical energy that we supply to electric cars and also to the on-site backup power panels. connection to the network.
What we must do is have a solution implemented in a very temporary and highly scalable way, which has the EV charger of your selection and the service provider of your selection; we are agnostic about those two things, but without any structure, without any electrical work, without any engineering, without any planning And what we must do is deploy temporarily and on a giant scale in this developing market without any of the costs, interruptions or dangers associated with the work of structure and electrical power. timely.
AKIKO FUJITA: Desmond, the electric vehicle charging stations, were, of course, in the middle of President Biden’s initial infrastructure proposal. It’s been particularly reduced in this bipartisan agreement, about $7 billion and $1/2 billion earmarked for all electric vehicle infrastructure, charging stations in part. To what extent do you think you can take advantage of it?And what does this mean in the end for Beam?
DESMOND WHEATLEY: That’s very smart news for us, we have a GSA contract in place, that the federal entities, and indeed the state entities, because we’re also a crisis preparedness asset, to acquire our product without going through any kind of competitive process. .
So, obviously, the accumulation of federal government spending is very vital for us and we believe that infrastructure spending will occur. There will be a lot of emphasis on transportation and electrification of transportation with, especially with U. S. -made products. they are in a position to be shoveled. In fact, there is no shovel. We deployed without any construction.
But at the end of the day, I’ll tell you it’ll end up being a consumer-centric process. The addition of new products like the all-electric F-150, General Motor’s Hummer product and all the other electric cars that lie ahead. Consumers will order these products. And the electric vehicle charging infrastructure will be existential to the expansion of this space, which is actually going to happen.
So, with or without federal spending, this is the best time to do what we do, but we think there will be a lot of federal spending and then also the states and municipalities.
AKIKO FUJITA: Desmond, fast, but on this subject, you have those big ambitions of corporations like GM that you just alluded to. To what extent is this adoption about running together?GM can sell every car in the world, but if they don’t have the infrastructure in the express markets, consumers might not need to adapt. Can you tell us how heavy they are and the partnerships you’ve put in position to verify to expand them?
DESMOND WHEATLEY: Oh, Akiko, you’re probably right. We foresee long-term electrification. Most European countries have already announced plans to sell cars with internal combustion engines from 2025 in Norway until 2040; car brands cannot make one set of cars for Europe and another for the United States. So there is no doubt that we will electrify ourselves.
And when you see that, you also get the point you just made, which is that charging infrastructure for electric cars is already vital for automakers; in other words, they can’t have a business if the provisioning infrastructure is in place. There will be a lot of desire for other people to paint together. We will have to spend a lot of money. Goldman Sachs called this a $6,000 billion infrastructure construction.
And we’re positioned. We already sell to the maximum of those entities and due to our agnosticism when it comes to the electric vehicle charger and the service provider, it can be said that our TAM is equivalent to all the MIR of electric vehicle charging corporations put together. There will be no web sites. Off-grid will play an important role, a massive role in it. But we believe, and many in government know this, that at least 25% of all electric vehicle charging infrastructure deserves to be stored locally and generated locally so that we don’t lose them to power outages and outages.
ZACK GUZMAN: yes, and Desmond, I mean, well, we were on a chart there, inventory has fallen about 30% since the beginning of the year, it’s still up, about 350% compared to last year. So, I mean, we’ve noticed that this total type of industry comes back maybe a little bit, it brings back some of the profits.
But I mean, what kind of expansion do you imagine that maybe the longer-term project here for Beam will involve, when we’re talking about the global addressable market, obviously, that’s being developed with each and every electric car coming to market?I mean, in terms of development, how many of those things that you sell, corporations that you paint with to get them out on the street?I mean, what does the expansion look like now?
DESMOND WHEATLEY: We’re in a superior historical pipeline right now. In May of this year, we already had a larger order ebook and accumulated earnings than our total number in 2020. And we’re in a facility where we can grow up to 2,200 sets a year, for a turnover of $140 million. But I’m going to tell you this: we’re going to have to open another 10, and even then, we won’t be able to scratch the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
Imagine a world without fuel stations. And all of a sudden, you have to build every gas station in the world over the next two decades. That’s where we are with the electrification of transportation. That’s why it’s so vital to have a temporarily deployed and highly scalable solution that doesn’t have to go through a long environmental time that has an effect on assessments, permits, constructions, electrical paints or anything else.
We are a flash war, not a headquarters. We do it faster than anyone and more scalable than anyone and with the maximum source of physically powerful energy, because we are going to generate a new source every day and we are not affected by centralized vulnerabilities, such as the one we find with the grid.
ZACK GUZMAN: yes, it’s exciting to see the structure and all this unfolding here before our eyes, faster than other people might have anticipated, but Desmond Wheatley. . .
DESMOND WHEATLEY: Yes.
ZACK GUZMAN: –President and CEO and Chairman of the Board of Beam Global, thank you for coming to speak with us today.