🔒CT company loses federal contracts for solar EV chargers amid Trump admin. rollback

Guy Mannino founded electric vehicle infrastructure company Verdek in 2008, during the Great Recession, when oil cost $100 a barrel.

Scrambling to find solutions at a time when the price of oil seemed to have no ceiling, the automotive industry began to pivot toward electric vehicles.

Mannino saw an opportunity to serve the growing market.

“That’s when I got into this business,” he said.

Verdek, which sells, installs and services electric vehicle chargers across the United States, is based in a small office in Monroe. The company has 15 employees — mostly salespeople and project managers spread across the country — and generates $15 million to $20 million a year in revenue, Mannino said.

Verdek’s customers include private developers, states and, until recently, the federal government.

The Trump administration has removed all electric vehicles from GSA Advantage, an online catalog of pre-approved vendors and products for federal agencies, Mannino said.

“Any federal agency today that wants to buy an electric vehicle cannot do it,” he explained. “It’s a major shift. I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but this is what’s happening now.”

Further, he said Verdek has received letters terminating several infrastructure projects it had been awarded by federal agencies. The federal government cited a “convenience clause” as the reason for ending the agreements.

“Right now, there’s a total shut-off of funds for electric vehicles, and infrastructure as well,” Mannino said.

That will have a significant impact on Verdek, as about 20% to 25% of its business comes from the federal government, he said.

The company is working to offset some of those losses by focusing on its business with state governments. In Connecticut, for example, Verdek has a contract to supply chargers to the Department of Administrative Services.

The company also recently won a competitive contract from the state of California to upgrade local government agencies’ EV infrastructure.

Border protection

One of Verdek’s most unique products is a moveable EV-charging station that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The self-powered charging apparatus — which has a sticker price of about $750,000 — generates electricity from an attached solar panel and can charge electric vehicles in areas where there is no electricity.

“It’s a unique case, because those stations are used at the border, and there are no electrical services nearby,” Mannino said. “The other thing was that they wanted something that was potentially movable to other locations. So, we designed that system.”

Verdek has sold three of its solar-powered EV charging stations to the border patrol, which has a fleet of electric vehicles, including the Ford F-150 Lighting.

The charging stations are used at two sites in Arizona and one in New Mexico.

The federal government’s recent move away from EV technology doesn’t make sense, Mannino said, because there is more than enough demand for the products.

It also runs counter to efforts made by the Biden administration, which allocated $7.5 billion in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build out a national network of publicly available electric-vehicle chargers.

The goal was to help finance 500,000 publicly available EV chargers by 2030. Connecticut was expected to receive at least $53 million in federal funding to grow its charging-station network.

“Everyone you talk to who has an electric vehicle says that they support building as many charging stations as possible,” Mannino said. “And you know, I think it seems like we don’t even have enough to support the ones that are on the road now.”

Turnkey offerings

Mannino previously worked for the California-based EV infrastructure company ChargePoint when it was still a small company with just a handful of employees. Now it’s traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

He learned from his experience there that an EV-charging company must provide wraparound services, including sales, installation and service.

“We realized that supplying chargers was not enough,” Mannino said. “You need to do turnkey. So, we expanded into our own network of installers to give customers a full turnkey project.”

Verdek doesn’t manufacture EV chargers. It buys products from various suppliers and assembles them.

Because there are so many companies manufacturing EV-charging components, Verdek focuses on providing services for its customers, who are the end-users of its products.

“In a way, we are hardware-agnostic,” Mannino said. “So, we try to give the customer the best fit for whatever they need. And some products are better for some things, and some for other things.”

Coming full-circle

Mannino recalls his first electric vehicle was similar to a golf cart. The battery had a range of about 20 miles, and it recharged using common, 120-volt residential outlets.

Whenever he drove, he carried a long extension cord with him, so if he ran out of juice, he could plug his car into a willing neighbor’s home.

EV technology has improved significantly since then — currently, batteries have ranges of 100 miles to more than 300 miles and can be fully charged within minutes.

Even still, consumers have not adopted electric vehicles as quickly as Mannino expected, he said.

That’s led to slower-than-expected growth. The EV industry faces other challenges, including political opposition to legal mandates aimed at spurring electric-vehicle adoption.

Last year, for example, Gov. Ned Lamont scrapped a plan to phase out all new sales of internal combustion engine vehicles in Connecticut by 2035, after facing a backlash.

Mannino said he remains optimistic about the long-term future of his business. The factors that will fuel future EV demand — including environmental concerns, improved battery technology and growing affordability — remain, he said.

He pointed out that delivery companies like Amazon and FedEx are converting to electric vehicles, as are public bus systems.

Also, newly built multifamily residences almost always offer electric chargers.

“If you have an electric vehicle, and if you’re looking for a place to stay, you’re going to look for a place where you can charge a car, so it becomes not an amenity but a necessity,” Mannino said.