What happened
Investors in electric vehicle (EV) charging network operator Blink Charging (BLNK -0.85%) are having a very good day Tuesday, their shares up 15.8% as of 1:30 p.m. EST.
Blink stock is benefiting from a press release it put out earlier this morning, announcing that it has signed an agreement with the City of San Antonio, Texas, naming Blink the city's public EV-charging infrastructure provider.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
As detailed in the announcement, San Antonio will contract with Blink to deploy and operate "up to" 140 level 2 charging ports and three direct current fast-charging stations around the city. Fifty charging stations, with two charging ports in each, will be deployed in the first phase of the project.
San Antonio will pay Blink nothing directly for expanding into the city. Rather, the city and the company will jointly benefit from customers using the stations through a revenue-sharing business model.
Blink will attempt to offset the upfront costs of providing the chargers by applying for a grant from the $10.4 million "statewide Texas Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Program."
Now what
In terms of dollars and cents, it's unclear how much recurring revenue 140 charging ports and three fast-chargers will work out to for Blink. But I doubt it's enough to justify the $330 million-plus increase in market capitalization that Blink just got from today's stock-price surge.
According to the company itself, Blink operates "over 23,000 charging stations" around the country, but that translated into less than $5 million in revenue over the past year. As good as today's news sounds, I'm skeptical that adding another 143 charging ports is going to move the needle all that much.
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