Al Root

Electric-vehicle charging company Wallbox is trying to innovate out of its President Donald Trump problem.

Investors are encouraged by the effort.

Tuesday, Wallbox launched its latest "Quasar 2" charger for Kia EV9 owners. It's an interesting product. It helps turn a Kia into a backup generator.

"This cutting-edge technology allows eligible EV9 owners and lessees to take control of their energy consumption and costs, and provides the possibility of power backup during electrical outages," said CEO Enric Asuncion in a news release.

The Wallbox power recovery unit is needed to make the system work. The Kia EV9 has hardware and software that let the charger take power back out of the car. It wouldn't work with many Teslas, though Tesla has said its vehicles would support bidirectional charging in 2025, and Cybertrucks have a Powershare feature that lets them, well, share power.

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment about the status of its bidirectional charging.

Wallbox's unit and the charger will cost owners about $6,500, excluding taxes and installation.

A Kia EV9 has a base battery pack size of about 75 kilowatt hours. That's enough to power the average U.S. home for about three days, although homeowners don't typically run every system of backup power in an outage.

Wallbox stock was up 3.6% in premarket trading at 40 cents a share, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down about 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

The small bump is little comfort for investors. EV charging has been tough lately. Wallbox shares dropped 12.5% on Monday. Coming into Tuesday trading, Wallbox stock was down more than 60% since the Nov. 5 presidential election.

President Trump has promised to eliminate spending and incentives tied to EVs started by former President Joe Biden, which has spelled disaster for several EV-charging stocks. Shares of ChargePoint, EVGo, and Blink Charging were down about 55% on average since the election.

Life will be harder for EV-charging companies without federal support. They will have to carve out a niche with low costs and unique innovations, like Wallbox is trying to do.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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March 04, 2025 08:30 ET (13:30 GMT)

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