“We are building our future on truck charging.” Jussi Vanhanen – CMO, Kempower

We spoke to Jussi Vanhanen, Chief Market Officer at Finland’s Kempower. The hardware provider already has a strong stand in Europe’s public charging market and is about to double its presence. At the same time, another business pillar is emerging and this one will be huge.

Staying in Kempower’s home market for now, Jussi Vanhanen says, “The new production factory will double the space we have in Finland.” The company already manufactures on 14,000 m2 and is reportedly building the next plant. This time the production will join in-house R&D facilities, flanked by a research centre at LUT University in the Finnish town of Lahti.

The new facility will not only double the space. “In Finland, we are doubling the capacity and on top comes the US expansion,” says Vanhanen. This is in preparation to become the “750-million-euro company,” as the marketer put it, they have announced.

Asked about the progress in the US, Vanhanen says they are on schedule announced earlier this year. The plant in Durham County, North Carolina, shall start producing DC chargers for electric vehicles before the year’s end. Kempower agreed to invest 41 million dollars alongside state subsidies, totalling three million dollars over twelve years.

Regarding these subsidies, Kempower does not share views on the EU having to do more. “At the moment, Europe is very attractive, and we do good business here.” Vanhanen adds that the continent remains their “main market”.

Still, cooperation with the state of North Carolina has been “exceptionally good,” according to the CMO, so they will continue to invest and hire people “as promised”.

Vanhanen expects the US market to become “at least the same size” as Europe, and Kempower is gearing up to deliver the first NEVI-compliant chargers made in America before the year’s end.

This naturally bears the question of NACS. Vanhanen is optimistic that Tesla will be “a strong standard in the future”. As a hardware provider, the company also targets Tesla drivers directly “so they can charge with Kempower,” says Vanhanen. He says introducing NACS concerns the timing of the move to the US. Moreover, Kempower expects the proprietary standard to become a part of NEVI requirements in “more and more States”.

Tesla will be “a strong standard in the future”.
Jussi Vanhanen, CMO Kempower

As for other industry trends, Vanhanen names truck charging as a “mega-trend” quite literally. “The second big thing is the user experience, now that EV charging is becoming mainstream.” The third one is a “total optimising” of the entire infrastructure; Vanhanen sees energy systems, charging stations, and business processes that need to be connected.

And Kempower is addressing all these trends. In our interview, Vanhanen put truck charging “definitely” in their strategy and as a “focus in the future” – a future that has come. Kempower released a 400 kW charger in 2022, which forms part of one of Sweden’s largest truck charging hubs, specifically in Gothenburg. With CPO Nimbet and Finnish Virta, Kempower is reportedly working towards a Sweden-wide charging network for electric trucks. This autumn, it opened its first ‘WattHub’ in the Netherlands with TSG, relying on high-powered hardware.

Looking at this multi-pronged approach bears the question of whether the company has a favourite leg to lean on. Kempower has “two strong legs,” says Vanhanen, public charging and commercial truck charging, slowly rolling in. Still, “at the moment, most of the business comes from public charging,” He lists private car charging and charging via CPOs and retail customers.

“Truck charging is something we are building our future on.”
Jussi Vanhanen, Kempower CMO

Yet he adds, “Truck charging is something we are building our future on,” also in the States. The truck business will come to the US, “for sure,” he says, believing it will be “even bigger business in the US than in Europe” since logistics primarily rely on trucks in North America.

On a last note of systemic integration – Kempower announced only this month a MegaWatt charging system compatible with the incoming MCS, a truck charging standard in Europe. The timeline, however, is ambitious since we could see the first installations early next year – before the underlying megawatt charging standard will be finalised.

Interview by Carla Westerheide at the Intercharge Conference ICNC in Berlin.