Enel X Way North America ceases operations

Enel X Way North America had set out to operate two million charging points in North America by 2030 – most of which were to be private and semi-public charging points, but also 10,000 fast chargers. For private charging points, the focus is on the wallbox called JuiceBox – not to be confused with the Swiss charging provider Juice Technology.

Enel X Way North America is a subsidiary of the Italian energy group Enel. The withdrawal from the US and Canada, announced at very short notice, was justified with a difficult financial environment – with high interest rates and the dynamics of the e-mobility market in the US. Enel apparently only wants to offer its chargers in countries already active in energy trading – to offer packages consisting of electricity tariffs and charging points. That is not the case in the US and Canada, where it only sold charging products (hardware and software).

As the company has announced, the entire Enel X Way software landscape in North America will also be shut down with the withdrawal. A third-party company has been engaged to manage the company’s remaining obligations and communicate directly with customers and partners regarding the shutdown, demonstrating how abrupt and short notice the withdrawal is.

That is a tough break for customers. Although EVs can still be charged at the JuiceBox, according to customer reports, the connectivity services have already been switched off. The Enel X Way app and all other eMobility apps from Enel in North America will also be discontinued and removed from the App Store. If access to the app is removed, charging processes can no longer be planned or controlled remotely. Commercial charging points are likely to be hit much harder: without a software backend for authenticating and billing charging processes, operation will probably not be possible. Customer support has supposedly already been cancelled.

At least a solution is on the horizon as US media outlets report that ChargeLab has already announced that it will take over the commercial network JuiceBox. “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,” the company said in a statement.

insideevs.com, electrek.co, theverge.com, juiceboxnorthamerica.com (statement)