The story begins with a small independent company called Route220, an Italian mobility service provider (MSP) that had been offering EV charging access to drivers since 2014. By mid-2022, Route220 was growing alarmed. The wholesale tariffs it was paying to access the charging infrastructure of Enel X Way — Italy's dominant charging point operator (CPO) and a subsidiary of the Enel Group — were rising steeply. More troubling still, the retail prices that Enel's own MSP arm, Enel X, was charging directly to end-consumers on its app were simultaneously being kept low. Route220 reported to the Italian competition authority, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), that something arithmetically impossible was being demanded of it: to compete on the retail market using a wholesale input priced above the very retail price its competitor was charging. Explore more in the latest edition of ERRA Regulatory Story.
ERRA Regulatory Story No. 18: When a Dominant EV Operator Squeezes the Market: Case Study of Italy