Tony Sklar of Ideanomics talks about investment opportunities in commercial EV financing platforms
Channel: InvestorCoffee
Date: 2020-12-01

In a recent InvestorIntel interview, Peter Clausi talks to Tony Sklar, Senior VP, Communications of Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDEX) about their commercial electric vehicle enablement platform, specializing in electric fleet management, from finance to purchase to maintenance to end of life.

“We have a business model that is sales to financing to charging”, explains Tony Sklar. “We will get you the best commercial electric vehicle at the best financial floated price. And we will get you the best pre-paid charging to get your fleet up and running as soon as possible.”

Commercial EV fleets are very different from the retail electric vehicle market, Sklar told Clausi. Most of the value of an electric vehicle is in the battery, and since electric vehicle batteries degrade over time, “how do you finance something that doesn’t have a residual value?” This particularly a problem for companies looking to finance an entire fleet of commercial electric vehicles. “What do you do when the battery diminishes?” Sklar asked. “These are the questions that the rest of the ecosystem hasn’t answered. Enter, Ideanomics.”

In this InvestorIntel interview, Sklar explains that in order to maintain and finance a fleet of commercial electric vehicles there needs to be a pool of liquidity available to operators. “This is all very brand new,” he said, and these “liquidity pools” have only just started to be set up “thanks to Ideanomics and our Executive Chairman Dr. Bruno Wu, who has been kicking in doors and making waves to get these things, and the rest of the world hasn’t caught up.”

Tony Sklar explained that Ideanomics is a services platform. “We participate in the sales, in the financing, and the charging [of commercial EV fleets], and we take our slices along the way.” And because Ideanomics is a services platform and not wedded to any single technology, Sklar says it is “a great opportunity for investors to participate in the upside of EV without the risk of a single battery or a single vehicle.”

Disclaimer: Ideanomics, Inc. is an advertorial member of InvestorIntel Corp.