Canadian EV charger manufacturer Flo ups production to meet N.A. demand

With production of its electric-vehicle charging stations ramping up this year at new assembly plants in Shawinigan, Que., and Auburn Hills, Mich., the Canadian charging company Flo will soon have capacity to build 75,000 EV chargers each year.

The company’s rapid expansion on both sides of the border will give it the production footprint to meet ballooning demand for charging infrastructure as the market switches to EVs, said Flo President Louis Tremblay.

“We definitely have everything [we need] to grow in North America, and the market is just starting,” he said.

Demand for EVs is so great, Tremblay said, that automakers could produce five times the number they are building today and still run short of inventory.

The exuberant shift to EVs augurs well for the charging market, with an abundance of places to plug in seen as essential to meeting aggressive EV adoption targets.

In Canada, the federal government plans to mandate that sales of all new light vehicles be zero-emission by 2035. It is backing the shift with hundreds of millions in funding for charging infrastructure. Targets in the United States are only marginally less aggressive than Canada’s, with funding for chargers to match.

‘NEEDED MORE SCALE’

Flo, founded in Quebec City in 2009, is expanding in both markets. After scaling up across Canada, it moved into the United States in 2018 and currently has more than 60,000 chargers operating in the two countries.

“The Canadian market is a great one; it’s really good for our company,” Tremblay said. “But we needed more scale, and the North American market for us was the answer.”

Between 80 and 85 per cent of Flo's revenue comes from sales of its Level 2 and fast-charging stations, which are deployed at homes and offices and throughout public charging networks from Southern California to Gaspésie in southeastern Quebec.

To localize and scale up production in the United States, Flo announced plans in June to spend $3 million to open a Michigan assembly plant. The site in Auburn Hills, north of Detroit, is scheduled to open this fall and gradually ramp up to producing 30,000 EV chargers per year.

It will join a pair of Flo assembly plants in Shawinigan, in central Quebec north of Trois-Rivières, where the company is expanding as well. Flo’s second Shawinigan plant opened in late 2021, doubling production capacity. Once running full tilt, the two Canadian plants will produce 45,000 chargers a year.

Flo carries out all the research and development for its chargers, but it is more of an assembler than a manufacturer, Tremblay said. The suppliers that feed its plants are predominantly local. FLO relies on Quebec-made circuit boards and sheet metal, while the power supplies for its fast chargers are produced in the Vancouver area.

SUPPLYING LOCALLY PAYS OFF

Localizing its supply chain paid dividends for the company during the pandemic, Tremblay said. As with automakers globally, however, microchips are one notable exception and have thrown up hurdles, with the supply from Asia being scarce, he said.

Along with charger sales, Flo generates 15 per cent to 20 per cent of its revenue from software and servicing its stations.

With EVs just beginning to make up a quantifiable portion of vehicle sales in North America, Tremblay expects Flo to continue growing rapidly through the 2020s.

The opportunity is considerable.

In the public charging realm alone, Canada currently has about 16,500 charging points, according to Natural Resources Canada. Ottawa has pledged to back the installation of an additional 50,000 by 2030.

Goals in the United States are larger. According to a recent International Energy Agency report, more than 100,000 public chargers are already along American roads. By 2030, Washington is looking to back construction of an additional 500,000.

CAN’T GO SOLO

Flo is ready to seize the opportunity, Tremblay said, but he knows the company will not have the market to itself.

“We’re working on the biggest challenge of our time, which is the fight against climate change, and it’s impossible that one company does it,” he said.

To supplement its own chargers, Flo has “roaming” partnerships with public charging networks, such as the Electric Circuit in Quebec and BC Hydro EV on the West Coast.

It also has a roaming deal with the Campbell, Calif.-based charging company ChargePoint that allows users of the competing networks to plug into either’s chargers.

There are times to be competitive, Tremblay said, but collaborating with rivals helps ensure the EV transition does not stall. If drivers are left stranded because networks or chargers do not play nice, it only sets the wider movement back, he said.

Flo’s current focus remains on Canada and the United States, but Tremblay is not ruling out a global rollout.

“I dream of going somewhere else one day,” he said. “I want to help the world meet the global fight against climate change. But for the next coming years, we are focusing on North America.”