Four chairs and a vision

Four years ago, amina was four chairs, some venture capital, and a belief that Europe deserved better EV charging. What they did not have: a production line, a supply chain, engineers, or any real idea how to build what they had imagined.
Dahl was employee number two. He had left a secure job to join a company that was, at that point, mostly vision and not much else.
“We were naive,” he says. “Turned out that was useful.”

100% yield on the last 5,000 units
Ole Martin Dahl, COO @amina

Building the wrong thing first

The initial approach was conventional. Find a contract manufacturer, design a charger, get it made. Standard hardware playbook.
It did not work.

“Energy companies kept asking for things we couldn’t deliver,” Dahl explains. “Not features of the charger itself. They needed predictable lead times, white-labelling, the ability to bundle chargers into service packages without worrying about support calls at 2am. Traditional hardware production couldn’t give them that.”

The problem was not the product. It was the system that made the product.
So they started again. This time, working backwards from what deployment at scale actually required: zero-defect reliability, branding flexibility, installation within minutes, commissioning on site within seconds. Things that sound straightforward until you try to deliver them consistently across thousands of units.
“We threw out designs. Rebuilt processes. Had weeks where everything broke at once,” Dahl says. “There were a few near-death experiences. More than a few, actually.”
The recall in 2023 was one of them. A component issue that required bringing amina 1 chargers back, fixing them, redeploying them. Expensive. Embarrassing. The sort of thing that kills early-stage hardware companies.
“The team kept going,” he says. “Our partners Zettler, Quectel, Phoenix, all of them pushed with us. Step by step.”
Automated electronics assembly line producing EV charger circuit boards for reliable, high-quality manufacturing
The production line at Topro Elektronikk in Gjøvik, where optical scanning and weight control catch errors before they become chargers. Getting here required throwing out the first approach entirely.

What zero defects actually enables

Inside the factory, every amina C is produced through a one-direction flow. No batching, no rework stations, no buffer inventory. Just-in-time manufacturing with in-line quality control at every stage.
The optical scanning catches assembly errors before they become chargers. The weight control identifies component issues a human would not spot. The electrical testing happens under real load conditions, not simulated ones.
“We’re not aiming for 99% yield,” Dahl says. “That sounds good until you’re deploying 10,000 units and suddenly you’ve got 100 failures in the field. We needed something energy companies could genuinely trust.”

Why reliability unlocks new business models

The 100% yield rate on the last 5,000 chargers is not about manufacturing pride. It is about what that reliability enables commercially.

When your hardware arrives exactly when promised, installs without surprises, and does not generate support calls, all sorts of business models become viable. Free installation programmes. Leasing arrangements. Bundled energy tariffs. Things that collapse completely if your hardware is unreliable or your lead times are unpredictable.

“Energy companies are increasingly competing on service, not just kilowatt-hours,” Dahl explains. “They need hardware they can confidently give away or bundle. That requires a different level of operational discipline than most hardware companies have.”

A charger that only draws power is part of the problem. One that can respond to demand-side flexibility signals is an asset.

Energy companies understand this immediately. Their customers just see a charger that works. But on the backend, they have got hardware that helps them manage grid constraints rather than making them worse.
It is the difference between selling a box and selling a system that solves actual operational problems.
Factory technician inspecting and configuring amina charger electronics at a dedicated workstation, demonstrating hands-on quality assurance before deployment.

The grid problem that needs solving

There is another element most people miss: amina C actively measures grid frequency and voltage in real time. With connectivity from Quectel and Comfycom, it responds to grid conditions in under a second.

The relays from Zettler respond within milliseconds, and the MCU for the power board from Nordic Semiconductor ensures each charging cycle is carried out to perfection, each time.

 

“Europe’s grid is increasingly fragile,” Dahl says. “More renewables, more distributed generation, more complexity. A charger that just sits there drawing power is part of the problem. One that can respond to demand-side flexibility signals is an asset.”

Energy companies understand this immediately. Their customers just see a charger that works. But on the backend, they have got hardware that helps them manage grid constraints rather than making them worse.

 

“Without partners like Zettler, Quectel, Comfycom, Nordic Semiconductor, and the others, none of this would be possible,” Dahl says.

It is the difference between selling a box and selling a system that solves actual operational problems.

Person wearing black amina charger jacket with product badge visible

2025 – 26.11

– Charge Point Operations

Why it’s so expensive to be a CPO

Read more

What systems thinking actually means

Dahl talks about Lean manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, flow production. Concepts that sound academic until you see them applied to something as tangible as a charging station.

“The charger is only the output,” he says. “What really matters is the outcome: improved profitability throughout the energy ecosystem. Energy companies that can deploy reliably, manage grid constraints, and build viable commercial models around EV charging. That’s what the system enables.”

 

He is not wrong. Most hardware companies optimise for the product itself. Better features, sleeker design, more functionality. amina optimised for the conditions that make large-scale deployment viable: manufacturing repeatability, supply chain resilience, installation speed, grid intelligence, commercial flexibility.

“We happened to build a charger along the way,” Dahl says. “But what we really built was the capability to deliver what energy companies need to make EV charging work commercially.”

January was amina’s best sales month ever. The order books are full. Given some of those near-death moments in the early years, that is not something to take for granted.

Order intake is at an all-time high — though we still have capacity to take on more.
Ole Martin Dahl, COO @amina

What comes next

The green transition, Dahl argues, will not be solved by better products alone. It needs better systems.
“Everyone focuses on the technology,” he says. “Battery chemistry, charging speeds, connector standards. Those things matter. But if you can’t deploy the technology reliably, at scale, with economics that work, it doesn’t matter how good the tech is.”

He pauses, watching another charger move through the final testing stage.

“We’re still learning. Still improving. But we’ve proved something important: you can build hardware in Europe that competes on reliability and economics, not just innovation theatre. You just have to be willing to build the system, not just the product.”
For energy companies trying to figure out how to make EV charging work commercially (predictable deployment, reliable hardware, grid responsiveness, business models that actually close), that distinction probably matters quite a bit.
Nobody needs another box with a cable. They need a system that makes the right outcomes inevitable.