Elli Drops Charging Hardware and Opens Its Doors to Investors
Elli, the Volkswagen Group's charging and energy company, is pulling out of hardware. It will stop building its Flexpole battery-buffered fast chargers and its own AC wallbox, and it is open to outside investors, chief executive Giovanni Palazzo told electrive in an interview published on 3 November.
Key takeaways
- Flexpole production in Hanover ends and the Elli wallbox is discontinued; remaining stock will be sold.
- Existing customers keep full service support.
- Building and maintaining fleet charging sites passes to partners by the end of 2027.
- A vehicle-to-grid offer with The Mobility House is due in November 2026.
What Elli is giving up
Palazzo said Elli will "significantly scale back" its hardware business. Production of the Flexpole, a fast charger with a built-in battery buffer, ends at the Hanover site, and the Elli-branded AC wallbox is discontinued. Remaining units will be sold off, but the company takes no new orders. According to Palazzo, the decision has nothing to do with weak sales or technical problems.
Fleet customers will see a change too. Planning, construction and maintenance of physical charging infrastructure will move to specialist partners, with the transition due to finish by the end of 2027.
Mobility and energy as the core
The company is reorganising around two business areas, Mobility and Energy. In mobility it concentrates on its role as a mobility service provider, on charging and fuel cards and on fleet management. Folding in the fuel card business of LogPay lets it serve fleets that still mix combustion and electric cars. Sixt already uses Elli's service, and Porsche is due to adopt it from 2027.
In energy, the Elli Naturstrom green electricity tariff stays central and dynamic tariffs are planned. Vehicle-to-grid charging is the main new field. An offer with The Mobility House, using a bidirectional DC wallbox from EV-Tech, is due to launch in November 2026, and customers could earn up to 720 euros a year in bill credits in 2026.
Investors and jobs
Several companies have shown interest in taking a stake or working more closely with Elli, though nothing has been agreed yet. Palazzo expects revenue in the high hundreds of millions of euros this year. Elli employs just under 400 people, and job cuts are likely in hardware, infrastructure and central administration. The number has not been set, and talks with the works council are under way.
What it means for you
If you already own an Elli wallbox, or your employer runs Flexpole chargers, service continues and there is no reason to replace working hardware. New buyers will have to pick a wallbox from another maker, while Elli's electricity tariffs and charging cards stay on sale. Owners of electric cars that support bidirectional charging should watch the V2G offer, which pays drivers for letting the grid use their parked car's battery.
More on the Volkswagen ID.3 is in our model guide, and the Volkswagen catalogue lists every version on sale and from the past.
Sources
- electrive: VW subsidiary Elli exits hardware business, opens doors to investors (3 Nov 2026) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
- electrive.net: VW-Tochter Elli Neuausrichtung (3 Nov 2026) (accessed 4 Nov 2026)
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