Easee does not change the charger – Dagsavisen

– Where will Easee be in six months? Yes, we are in Stavanger. The move has been completed and everything is fine, is the answer RA receives at Easee’s head office at Grenseveien 19 in Forus.

Easee is so sure that the sales ban will be part of the planned move from Grenseveien 19 on the Sandnes side of Forus to Vassbotn 23 on the Stavanger side of Forus. The moving plans were put on hold when their charger was suddenly banned from sale in Sweden.

The situation in Easee is serious. 138 people have been made redundant. The company is looking for investors. They stay afloat, but for how long? The danger of bankruptcy hangs over the young company, which after its start in 2018 has gone from three to around 500 employees.

A brief summary:

• The Norwegian Electricity Authority has pointed out a number of errors in the Easee Home, Easee Charge and Easee Ready electric car chargers. The dialogue with ESV has lasted approximately one year – and the company had until February to respond. Something Easee also did.
• The Swedish Electricity Authority believes that the product does not meet certain safety requirements for charging stations. The product does not have a physical earth fault breaker, and does not meet the requirement for direct current protection despite Easee declaring that the product has this, the Swedish supervisory body believes.
• On 15 March 2023, there was a sales ban in Sweden. The forwarding of documentation from Easee was not good enough for the Swedish Safety Agency.
• Easee has appealed the sales ban in Sweden. The appeal has not been processed. When it is, is unknown.
• Norske Nkom (National Communications Authority in Norway) must carry out its own investigations, even though they have stated that a sales ban in one EEA country usually leads to a sales ban in all EEA countries.
• The regulations in Sweden are the same as in Norway and the EU. This means that a sales ban in one country can mean a sales ban in all countries that are part of the EEA agreement.

– We do not know when the appeal case has been completed in Sweden. We also do not know when Nkom will come up with its conclusion, but we are not sitting idly by and waiting. We work with several solutions in parallel, says Tommy Ellingsen, creative manager at Easee.

[ Derfor ble Stavanger og Sandnes hovedstaden for elbillading ]

[ Easee: 138 ansatte permitteres ]

Clear speech: – Does not change anything in the charger

It’s banal things we’re talking about.

— Knut Arve Johnsen, VP hardware at Easee

The Swedish Safety Agency’s decision states that the errors that have been discovered must be rectified before sales can continue. Easee has no plans to change the charger. Knut Arve Johnsen, who is vice president for hardware at Easee, is fully aware of that.

– We do not change the charger. We don’t even consider it. It is almost an impossible task. It’s backwards. The charger is as it should be. It’s a good charger. What we could have done differently is to have better documented, says Johnsen to RA.

Because this is where the matter stands. Easee does not change, but will document better. Get a better dialogue. Hopefully, the documentation will be approved by the Swedish Safety Agency, and Easee will still be able to sell chargers in Sweden. Over 100,000 chargers have already been sold.

– The paradox is that we have won “best in test” awards eight or nine times in Sweden, including in M3 and Aftonbladet. Twice while it was at most, after the case came up, says Kenneth Bjerga, PR manager in the Nordic region.

– These are banal things, adds Johnsen and explains:

– We must respect the regulations. Innovation pushes the standards. One must come before the other, but what we do must be properly documented. The solution we have moved quickly is deliberate on our part, but we have underestimated the documentation when you go outside the standards in the regulations. You must document correctly when you “don’t follow the recipe”. Here at Easee, we clearly have improvement potential. We must build up a more orderly way of documenting, so that there is no room for misunderstandings, says Johnsen.

[ LEDER: Tunge tider for Easee ]

138 made redundant: Lost for competence

In mid-March, Easee laid off 138 employees for five months. For the time being, there is no question of laying off more people.

– It was extensive work to select who had to be made redundant. Some criteria were set. A difficult process. Tough for everyone, whether you have children and a family, a mortgage, or not. It’s about what needed to be done. Those made redundant are from all types of departments, says Ellingsen.

Since its inception, Easee has struggled to get hold of qualified labor with the right skills.

– Some positions are easier to fill, finance, market, communication. In IT, and especially system developers, we often have to go the extra mile to find what we need, Easee recruiter Mauran Tammaoui for RA in 2021 when Easee was going to hire a hundred people that year.

Bjerga and Ellingsen acknowledge that the workforce Easee has built up over the years may be lost. Five months leave is a long time. Many will probably look for a new job.

– It might be a challenge, but we had no other choice. We had to reduce. We certainly would have kept them and remember they are laid off, not fired. We certainly want them back. We also understand that people have to do what is right for them, says Ellingsen.

[ Easee-leverandør må si opp 81 ansatte ]

Sales ban in several countries?

Easee has a relaxed relationship with the risk of a sales ban in Norway or other countries.

– The other countries in the EU have 90 days to decide whether they want to follow Sweden, or do their own investigations. Some may choose to follow Sweden. Each country chooses itself, says Ellingsen.

– No other country has hinted at a sales ban, but we have been in contact with some countries’ authorities and said we can send them the documentation package we have now compiled, he adds.

Easee hopes that as many people as possible investigate the Easee chargers. Johnsen says that they want more third-party assessments. One has already been done. The German automobile association ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club), which is Germany’s answer to the Norwegian NAF, concludes that the charger is safe in its test.

– It’s great that others are investigating. We hope that as many people as possible do so. I think it will strengthen our credibility and that more people will see that our charger is safe, says Johnsen.

[ Easee-sjef optimistisk etter krisemøte ]

– Supportive customers

Several players have put the sale of the Easee chargers on hold following the Swedish sales ban. The Easee management understands that it can make customers insecure.

– We still sell chargers. Incredibly few customers contact us and ask us. Instead, we have many who oppose us. We see that in the comment fields and surveys. Many people like our product. I think people understand that this is only about documentation, says Knut Arve Johnsen.

Nkom may have a conclusion in August

Department director at Nkom, John-Eivind Velure, explains what Nkom will do going forward, and when they come up with their own conclusion on the Easee chargers:

– There are two things happening in parallel here. We review the documentation available from the Swedish Electrical Safety Authority and any other documentation that is relevant to the case, immediately. There are extensive case documents, and it will take some time to go through everything, but we hope to have made an assessment during May. However, it may take a little longer depending on what we uncover in our review. We understand that it is desirable for our review to proceed quickly, but we can never let this happen at the expense of accuracy and quality.

At the same time, Nkom has started work on testing 5–6 charging boxes in Norway.

– We expect to have test results ready for this work in August, says Velure.

This can happen with Easee in Europe

The department director says that it is basically the case that a decision in an EU/EEA country must be felt by all member states. When a decision has been made in a country, what is called a “Safe Guard” process is established in the EU.

This means that the individual member states can make their own assessments and report the outcome of these to the European Commission within 90 days.

– If one or more countries object to the Swedish decision, the European Commission must enter into a dialogue with the member states and the actor who has had the decision directed at them, and evaluate the measure from the Swedish authorities. Based on the results of this evaluation, the Commission will decide whether the decision by the Swedish authorities is justified or not, says Velure and adds:

– If the Commission comes to the conclusion that the decision by the Swedish authorities is justified, the other member states will have an obligation to follow this up in their national markets. If the Commission finds that the decision is not justified, the Swedish authorities will have to withdraw their decision.

[ Om Bollywoods barnevernfilm: – Alle jeg har snakket med i det indiske miljøet deler det samme synet ]