By all measures, electric vehicles’ availability and sales are expanding rapidly in the U.S. In fact, in the first quarter, there were 42 EV models available, up from 34 year over year. All while EV sales soared 45% year-over-year to a record of nearly 260,000. That also puts America on course to surpass 1 million annual EV sales for the first time in 2023. Not only is that bullish for electric vehicle companies, it’s a major catalyst for EV charging infrastructure stocks. After all, on road trips, EV drivers will need to stop to charge. That alone makes some of the best EV charging stocks solid buys. In fact, here are three.
EVgo (EVGO)
EVgo (NASDAQ:EVGO), which already has one of the largest fast-charging networks in the U.S., will be able to add significantly to its network in California without spending any of its own funds. That’s because, on April 4, the company disclosed that it had been awarded $6.6 million from the state to launch EV chargers in central and eastern California. Using the funds, “EVgo will build more than 100 DC fast charging stalls across 17 locations in central and eastern California, including Fresno, Hayward, Manteca, El Cerrito, Antioch and San Jose,” Seeking Alpha noted.
Given the high penetration of EVs in California, those new chargers should meaningfully boost EVgo’s top and bottom lines, significantly lifting EVGO stock in the process. Making EVGO on of the best EV charging growth stocks, the company is expanding extremely rapidly. Analysts, on average, expect its top line to climb to $140 million this year versus the $54.6 million that it generated in 2022. For 2024, the mean estimate is $266.6 million.
ChargePoint (CHPT)
ChargePoint (NYSE:CHPT) “sells the hardware and software components of public EV chargers. It also services those chargers.”
Boasting very impressive credentials, ChargePoint says that it has “hundreds of thousands” of charging locations, with a presence in both the U.S. and Europe. Importantly, the latter continent’s EV penetration is much higher than that of America. CHPT also notes that “80% of Fortune 50 companies are ChargePoint customers.” As these companies buy tens of thousands of more EVs, ChargePoint’s revenue and profits from them should increase tremendously.
After meeting with ChargePoint’s management, JPMorgan analyst Bill Peterson on March 31 expressed optimism about the company’s strategy and ability to enter the black. He kept an “outperform” rating on the shares. Analysts, on average expect the company’s revenue to advance to $703.5 million this year and $1.1 billion in 2024, up from $468 million last year.
Tritium (DCFC)
As I noted in a previous column, “Tritium (NASDAQ:DCFC), which builds electric-vehicle chargers, has partnered with one of the world’s largest oil companies, BP (NYSE:BP).” Showing that the alliance is alive and well, Tritium disclosed that it had obtained a large order from BP. In fact,the order was Tritium’s largest ever, and, under the deal, BP will deploy the company’s chargers ” in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia,” Tritium reported.
In 2022, before that deal was announced, Tritium received an impressive order total of $195 million. Meanwhile, the company is building a plant in Tennessee that, when completed, should meaningfully boost its profitability and enable it to benefit from key provisions provisions of the Democrats’ climate change law. The company expects its 2023 revenue to come in above $200 million, meaning that the company is trading at a very attractive forward price-sales ratio of well under one time.
As of the date of publication, Larry Ramer owned shares of EVGO. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.