Not Every EVSE Partner Is Reliable
EV Charging Solutions
Two words hit any network like a bucket of cold water: Market Exit. It means orphaned and inoperable hardware, and costs no one budgeted for. When software firms close their doors and hardware OEMs exit markets with a terrifying regularity, how do you choose the right source for your EV charging hardware and software? It’s important to look for companies that have strong support networks, deep production histories, and solid credentials. MSI offers a proven history of market resilience, global support, and engineering excellence.
Industry Instability
When an EVSE brand exits a market or folds entirely, both networks and home charging stations are often left stranded and inoperable. Whether this exit is heralded by months-long communication with partners, a midnight blog post hidden in the noise, or a simple overnight disappearance, the leaving is always disruptive.
Enel X Way's 2024 exit from the US market is the clearest recent example of what this looks like in practice. With nine days' notice, the company discontinued its app and backend software, leaving roughly 25,000 commercial charging stations effectively inoperable and 100,000 residential units stripped of every smart feature their owners had paid for. For site hosts and network operators, the consequences are not abstract. Dozens of sites going offline simultaneously can mean months of lost revenue, emergency hardware replacement costs, and serious damage to client relationships. For networks operating on tight margins, that kind of disruption can be existential.
Finding Stability
There are certain things to look for when deciding on a charging partner. Networks know to look for hardware that’s OCPP compatible and not part of a proprietary system. That means choosing companies that are committed to open charge protocols and work with a range of other providers: software companies that work with multiple hardware lines, and hardware manufacturers that are interoperable with different software backends.
Pure-play EVSE companies, those that are all-in on EV charging as their sole revenue stream, typically have no other revenue to sustain them when a market slows or turns down. These companies try to choose their markets strategically, leaning into those that already have infrastructure momentum because they believe these markets will provide a solid foundation of revenue. When those markets don’t grow at the pace expected, those same companies can get cold feet. This has happened in the recent past in both the US and Australia when political pressures or a change in the governing party changed local priorities almost overnight.
Market exits aren't limited to companies suffering financially; strategic pivots by profitable companies can strand hardware just as effectively. However, companies with diversified local portfolios or existing local operations are less likely to pull out completely or to remove support for their EV charging hardware. They have local relationships to protect and other product lines to support.
Stability also means longevity: how long a company has been working in a particular industry and how long that company has been present in a certain country. MSI has been engineering and manufacturing hardware for 40 years, has been involved in vehicle hardware manufacturing for almost 20 years through FUNTORO, and has offices and service centers in more than 120 countries around the world. With products ranging from Gaming PCs to Autonomous Mobile Robots to EV chargers, MSI has a longstanding, wide-reaching, and stable product catalog that EV charging service providers can rely on for decades to come.
Global Support
A company can claim support, but you need to ask where and how that support is offered. Are there local offices in your country/region? Is support local or all centralized in a single location and time zone? Has the company been doing business in your country or region for a long time or is it a newcomer that’s still learning the ropes and trying to set up a localized operation?
MSI backs all of its hardware with a strong international service and localization network built decades ago for other product lines. That infrastructure provides widespread, localized support for MSI products and hardware warranties without depending on the EVSE business alone to sustain it. Operators and installers can meaningfully reduce their risk by choosing hardware from manufacturers with long-standing local footprints, OCPP-compliant products interoperable with multiple backend systems, and product lines that don't live or die on EV charging alone. If you're evaluating AC charging hardware for your network or catalog, reach out to the MSI EVSE team.
