Enel X Way North America is shutting down – here’s what we know

Enel X Way North America has announced it’s shutting down its residential and commercial EV charger business in the US and Canada, effective October 11, 2024.

Once upon a time (or, more precisely, April 2023), Enel X Way North America had big plans to add 10,000 DC fast chargers in North America by 2030. Boy, did the company do an about-face today.

Enel X Way USA, which operates Enel X Way North America, today said that a third-party firm will be appointed to manage the company’s remaining obligations and communicate directly with customers and partners regarding the shutdown.

Why is it shutting down in the US and Canada?

Enel Group plans to offer its chargers in countries where it already operates electricity retail businesses so it can offer bundles. It doesn’t have a retail electricity customer business in the US and Canada. All Enel X Way North America was doing was selling charging hardware and software there.

The EV charging company also claims that the “dynamics of the EV market in the US have changed quite a lot in the last year.” It says it’s been impacted by high interest rates that have increased the cost of scaling the charging infrastructure business “in a framework of sustained uncertainty where EV sales growth expectations have not been met.”

How does this impact home EV chargers?

JuiceBox, Enel X Way’s residential EV charging hardware, will still be able to charge vehicles. However, the Enel X Way app and all other Enel e-mobility apps in North America will be discontinued and removed from the App Store. So If you own a JuiceBox, you just got nine days’ warning that your home charger can no longer be configured.

Our colleague Michael Bower has a JuiceBox with which he charges his Chevy Bolt, and I asked him how he felt about this announcement. He replied:

I’m disappointed that Enel X Way is removing their apps – and thus the ability to change the amperage – for their EVSEs. I live in a condo with a 100A panel, so the ability to lower the amperage from 40 to 32 or 16 was beneficial when charging my EV while drawing power for laundry or the central A/C in the summer. It just shows how “smart” EVSEs are too reliant on their respective apps.

What about Enel X Way commercial EV chargers?

It’s not good. Because all Enel X Way software will be discontinued, commercial charging stations will lose functionality without software continuity. So, Enel X Way’s chargers just became useless. But hey, you can’t discuss it! Because customer support is canceled starting … now.

Might it be possible to give them a second life by installing another company’s software into them? Why wouldn’t Enel X Way offload its hardware to a competitor or group? But for now, all that hardware is useless, and it’s left its EV-driving customers high and dry. what a waste.

Going forward:

Any Enel X Way-related questions and claims should be directed in the coming days to the claims information page (available soon).

Here’s the full announcement.

UPDATE: ChargeLab CEO Zak Lefevre just emailed me to say that his company, which provides back-end management software for commercial charging networks, is announcing an offer to take over compatible Enel X Way commercial chargers. “Commercial site hosts impacted by the discontinuation of Enel X Way software should contact ChargeLab today to discuss migration options before Enel X Way servers are permanently disabled.” Read more here.