In August we marked our own homework. The March thesis on who ends up owning Europe's charging networks scored five hits, one partial and one not yet, and we promised to check again in six months. The market didn't wait, so neither did we.
Between 12 August and 3 November we count 12 changes of control in European charging. Two carmakers walked out, BP kept packing, and the company that bought BP's Dutch forecourts sold the chargers standing on them. The real plot twist came from the cast we'd written as sellers.
Prefer to watch? Here's the 3-minute version.
What we said in March
The Consolidation Game sorted Europe's charging companies with two questions. Do you own the ground your chargers stand on, or rent it? And are you in charging to make money from it, or because it helps you sell something else?
Owners with a long horizon should end up holding the best sites. Tenants who were in it for a side benefit would sell once it stopped suiting them: utilities on a back-to-core journey, carmakers tired of paying for their own networks, and listed pure-plays with no path to profit. The oil majors were the paradox, top-row owners selling their own forecourts.
On the buy side we named infrastructure funds as the busiest acquirers, expected small national operators to be absorbed, and gave property owners until 2027–2030 to take charging in-house. Our long-term winners: converted fuel retailers, fund-backed super-operators, large charging specialists and retailers running their own chargers.
The March thesis: who can stay in Europe's charging market depends on who controls the property, and why they are in charging
Source: The Consolidation Game, Chargalytics, March 2026, redrawn with more examples. Owners hold their sites outright or on long leases; tenants host chargers on someone else's land. Fund-owned operators are shown with their main owner in brackets. Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging is left out because Mercedes has just sold it to Electra. Independent charging specialists such as Fastned and Electra were not placed on the March matrix. Logos are trademarks of their owners.
Twelve weeks, twelve deals
The pace hasn't changed much. We count 60 changes of control in European charging so far this year, about six a month. July was the peak, when Eviny agreed to merge with Mer, CUBOS bought TotalEnergies' German charging business and Powerdot took over InstaVolt in Spain and Portugal. What changed this autumn is who was buying.
Changes of control in European EV charging, 2026 to date: 60 deals, 12 of them since our August scorecard
Source: Chargalytics M&A tracker, cleaned by hand, deals by month of announcement. Counts acquisitions, mergers, carve-outs and stake buy-outs of charging businesses (networks, software, hardware and installers) in Europe. Excludes fundraising, partnerships, contract re-awards, fuel-station deals without a charging business, duplicates and old stories re-published with new dates. January–March were collected after the fact and are probably incomplete. April–July are higher than in our August scorecard because the tracker has since filled gaps. November covers 1–3 November.
The sellers went shopping
Utilities were supposed to be the sellers in this story. This quarter they were also its busiest buyers, on the buy side of six of the 12 deals.
E.ON alone did three deals in twelve weeks: the Swedish half of its Scandinavian joint venture with Clever, 79 former bp pulse sites in the Netherlands and Smatrics EnBW's four Italian motorway parks. By its own count it now runs about 10 000 public chargers in eleven countries. E.ON isn't selling chargers. It's collecting them.
It wasn't alone. Austria's EVN is crossing into Bavaria by agreeing to buy BayWa's 170-point fast-charging business out of BayWa's restructuring. Sorégies, a regional supplier from Poitiers, agreed to buy bp's French network. LichtBlick, Eneco's German arm, took over Mer's German business customers.
So were we wrong? Half. Four utility-owned charging businesses still sold this quarter, and the sellers look like the ones that treated charging as a side bet. The buyers see a way to keep an electricity customer. "Back to core" turns out to depend on what you think your core is.
The sellers are mostly going home, too. Smatrics left Italy for "complete concentration" on Austria. E.ON and Clever split their Scandinavian network by flag: Denmark to Clever, Sweden to E.ON, Norway to Uno-X. The five-to-eight-operators-per-market endgame is arriving by subtraction, and E.ON is the one doing the adding.
European charging changes of control, 12 Aug–3 Nov 2026: number of deals by seller and buyer type
Source: Chargalytics M&A tracker, deals announced 12 Aug–3 Nov 2026, each checked against the original announcement. Each of the 12 deals counts once as a sale and once as a purchase. Utilities include municipal and cooperative energy companies: E.ON, Clever, Statkraft (Mer), Smatrics EnBW, Zorlu Enerji, LichtBlick, EVN and Sorégies. Other corporates: BayWa and KG Knutsson (sellers), Sogetrel (buyer).
Mercedes kept the network it shares and sold the one it owned
In March we named two carmaker networks whose parents might get tired of paying for them: Mercedes me Charge and NIO Power. This quarter both moved.
Mercedes-Benz handed its European network to Electra: 47 parks and 374 fast-charging points, effective 3 November. A year earlier it was talking about more than 10 000 points worldwide by 2030. It kept Ionity, which it co-owns with other carmakers, as a premium partner. Keep the network you share, sell the one you were paying for alone.
Neither side disclosed the price. Mercedes' quarterly report did disclose the book value, €99m against €21m of liabilities, which is as close as this market gets to a price tag. Electra's German network went from 50 parks to 81 overnight.
Renault sold Elto France, the business behind Mobilize Power Solutions, to French contractor Sogetrel. Geely agreed to take 30 per cent of NIO Power at a valuation of about RMB 16 bn. This call wasn't on the August scorecard because nothing had happened yet. Now it's a hit.
BP sold the chargers. So did the people who bought BP's petrol stations
The oil majors kept leaving, as forecast. Sorégies is taking over bp pulse France: 32 sites with more than 600 points, 14 more in development, many on the A10, A11 and A71.
The Netherlands was more instructive. Catom, which runs the OK brand, bought BP's Dutch forecourts in 2025, chargers included. In October it passed the charging network to E.ON, which will run 79 sites and 370 points under the Essent brand. Most of them stay exactly where they are, on OK forecourts.
In March we asked whether the fuel retailers inheriting the oil majors' property would run charging themselves, outsource it or ignore it. Catom answered: keep the forecourt, let somebody else run the chargers. The property advantage is real. Its new owners just don't want to be charge point operators.
BP, meanwhile, is leaving continental charging rather than charging. In Britain it signed Roadchef for bp pulse chargers at more than 30 motorway services from 2027. And the textbook fuel-retailer deal happened on the other side of the planet: Ampol bought Australia's Evie Networks for A$225m, about €135m, and even named a breakeven year, 2028.
Property owners: still renting out the car park
The call we were proudest of is still the one with no evidence. In 31 weeks of tracked deals, the number of European retailers or landlords that bought a charging business is zero.
The nearest miss was a grocer hosting somebody else's chargers: Tyrolean supermarket chain MPREIS now has 90 points at 22 stores, owned by Mer Austria. Norway's grocery wholesaler ASKO did follow the script, just for its own trucks: it owns more than 60 high-power chargers and has hired ABB E-mobility to run them. Our timeline said 2027 to 2030, so this is still "not yet" rather than "wrong". Ask us again next year.
Listed pure-plays: the exit is a take-private
Listed charging companies kept running out of road, though the clearest exit was American. On 2 November LS Power, which already controls 56 per cent of EVgo's votes, offered $2.00 a share for the rest, a 59 per cent premium. In Brighton & Hove, Blink lost its council contract: from 15 October Believ runs the 110-plus faster chargers, and Char.gy replaces the lamp-post units. Not a sale, so it isn't in our count, but it's the same story told through a procurement portal.
Europe's charging IPO count stays at zero. The exception that proves nothing is Fastned, still listed and growing: Q3 gross profit up 44 per cent, 65 stations under construction.
Infrastructure funds again preferred lending to buying. Aberdeen and Standard Life gave EZO a €150m investment-grade facility, repaid from ring-fenced charging revenue. The one fund deal with a price was Wren House and the Kuwait Investment Authority buying out Zorlu Enerji's 41.28 per cent of Electrip for $147.6m. That is the only disclosed price in 12 deals. In August it was one in 38. Consistency, at least.
The scorecard
| What we predicted in March | August | November | What moved it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utilities on a back-to-core journey sell their charging arms | Hit | Hit, with a twist | Four utility-owned businesses sold, but utilities were the buyer in six of 12 deals. E.ON alone did three |
| Oil majors keep shedding downstream retail | Hit | Hit | bp is selling France to Sorégies; its former Dutch network moved on from Catom to E.ON |
| Listed pure-plays exit or get taken out cheaply | Hit | Hit | LS Power bids to take EVgo private; Blink loses its Brighton & Hove contract to Believ and Char.gy; still no European charging IPO |
| Capital flows to perceived winners, everyone else starves | Hit | Hit, on thin data | EZO (€150m), Voltix (€90m from its parent Vinci) and Qwello (up to €55m) took over 90% of disclosed European money; the rest were seed rounds |
| Infrastructure funds are the most active acquirers | Partial | Partial | Funds lent (EZO) and bought out a partner (Electrip). Utilities and specialists did the buying |
| Property owners take charging in-house | Not yet | Not yet | Zero acquisitions in 31 weeks. Catom sold its chargers instead |
| Small national operators get absorbed | Hit | Hit | CUBOS bought SCAPO, Qwello bought Groen-Eco, Milepost bought KG Knutsson's Sandviken network |
| Carmaker networks other than Tesla get sold | Not scored | Hit | Mercedes to Electra, Renault's Elto France to Sogetrel, Geely to take 30% of NIO Power |
| Pure-play utilities drop out of the long-term picture | Not scored | Wobbling | E.ON counts about 10 000 public chargers in eleven countries and is still buying |
What we said we'd watch
Statkraft's leftovers. "They will move," we wrote in August. Mer's German business-customer arm moved nine days later, to LichtBlick. Mer Austria is still with Statkraft and busy signing up supermarkets.
The German roll-up. CUBOS bought SCAPO, its fourth network in ten months, and now claims more than 16 000 charge points, most of them behind company gates. EVN, Electra and LichtBlick all bought their way into Germany, or further into it.
Eviny and Mer. On 9 October the Norwegian Competition Authority said the merger needs a closer look, because in several areas where the two compete there are few alternative operators. The brand question we raised in our Mer–Eviny valuation waits a little longer. So does Statkraft's 43 per cent.
Eight months in, the sell side of the thesis is holding. The buy side has an extra guest we didn't invite, and the one we did invite still hasn't turned up. Next marking in February, or sooner if E.ON buys something else this week.
Method: changes of control (acquisitions, carve-outs, asset transfers and stake buy-outs) in European charging announced 12 August – 3 November 2026, taken from the Chargalytics M&A tracker and each checked against the original announcement. Excluded: internal reorganisations (Energie 360° folding four brands into Joya Mobility), contract re-awards (Brighton and Hove moving from Blink to Believ and Char.gy), deals announced before the window (Helen to Plugit, Eviny and Mer) and older stories re-published with new dates. Because the count is hand-checked, it is not directly comparable with August's tracker-wide 38. Prices are converted to EUR at announcement.
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