Brisbane’s Tritium to move production to US

NASDAQ-listed electric vehicle charger manufacturer Tritium has ended speculation about the future of its Brisbane factory and announced that it will move production to Lebanon, Tennessee, in a bid to break even.

In a statement this week, Tritium said it would be “consolidating its global manufacturing operations into its scaled plant in Lebanon,” as well as reducing expenses through headcount.

“These changes reduce our capital requirements and hasten the timing of the company becoming EBITDA positive,” said CEO Jane Hunter in a statement on Tuesday.

“[The plan]… supports the ongoing market competitiveness and positioning of the company as a world leader in its category, driven in part by the highly successful scale-up of our US plant and the NEVI and BABA programs in the United States, while bringing our manufacturing operations closer to our largest markets.”

The number of roles to be lost at Murarrie were not shared, and the company mentioned that it intends to “retain and grow” an R&D and test workforce of 200 in Brisbane.

According to an article in The Australian Financial Review last week – which also reported that Tritium was seeking a $90 million capital injection from the Queensland government – jobs at the factory had dropped from 600 to 400.

Tritium is among the world’s best-selling fast charger makers – according to the company it has 75 per cent share in Australia, and ranked number 1 in the US and number 3 in Europe – though its share price has plummeted since a $US 1.4 billion IPO in March 2021. 

Profitability has also been elusive. Though revenues more than doubled in the last financial year to $US 185 million, it had a gross margin of minus 2 per cent.

Picture: credit Tritium

Further reading

Tritium’s record production propels it to number one spot outside China

Tritium wins largest-ever order from bp

Tritium achieves $200 million in sales in one year

Tritium opens one of the world’s largest EV charger testing chambers