WiTri­city, one of the highest-pro­file star­tups in the elec­tric vehicle char­ging busi­ness, quietly closed what had been its main office in Water­town earlier this year. WiTri­city’s new headquar­ters is in Mid­way, Geor­gia, on the out­skirts of Savan­nah. That’s where the com­pany’s new CEO, Joe Benz, resides — but he says there were other reas­ons for the relo­ca­tion.

Chief tech­no­logy officer Mor­ris Kesler calls the Water­town office clos­ure “a cost-sav­ing meas­ure” and says that “there are a hand­ful of staff still based in Mas­sachu­setts and work­ing remotely.” Benz says about 80 people work for WiTri­city, down from a peak of more than 100, accord­ing to former employ­ees.

The com­pany was born in 2007 to com­mer­cial­ize a tech­no­logy inven­ted at MIT that can “beam” elec­tri­city over short dis­tances, with min­imal energy loss. Though the com­pany explored using its tech­no­logy to wire­lessly charge laptops or phones placed on a desk, for much of its life, WiTri­city has focused on wire­less char­ging of elec­tric cars, work­ing with man­u­fac­tur­ers like BMW, Toyota and Hyundai. But the tech­no­logy — which required a char­ging pad to be installed in a driver’s gar­age or drive­way and a char­ging receiver built into the car — only made its way into a very small num­ber of leased vehicles. Installing a char­ging pad and the receiver in the vehicle added roughly $5,000 in costs; the com­pany aimed to bring that down to $2,500 over time.

Talks with Tesla about integ­rat­ing the WiTri­city tech­no­logy into its vehicles seemed to be pro­gress­ing but were even­tu­ally put on ice, accord­ing to one former employee. (Tesla has long been the world’s top maker of elec­tric vehicles, but it is now being chal­lenged by BYD of China.)

WiTri­city is now focused on mak­ing equip­ment that will enable wire­less char­ging of golf carts and so-called “neigh­bor­hood elec­tric vehicles” — golf carts used for trans­port­a­tion off courses, Benz says.

While sales of elec­tric cars haven’t taken off as the com­pany once pre­dicted, he says these smal­ler vehicles can provide WiTri­city “a nice little niche busi­ness that gen­er­ates rev­enue here and now,” before the pas­sen­ger car mar­ket grows to higher sales volumes. Benz expects that may take until 2029 or 2030.

Sev­eral major man­u­fac­tur­ers of golf carts, includ­ing Club Car and E-Z-Go, are loc­ated in Geor­gia. Benz also plans to focus the com­pany on enabling wire­less char­ging of elec­tric “yard tract­ors” — heavy-duty vehicles that move cargo trail­ers around ports or rail­yards — and he notes that the Port of Savan­nah is expand­ing.

Sev­eral key exec­ut­ives have depar­ted WiTri­city in recent months, includ­ing the com­pany’s head of human resources, chief mar­ket­ing officer, senior vice pres­id­ent of engin­eer­ing, and chief fin­an­cial officer. Benz says that “all of our key pos­i­tions are filled,” but wouldn’t be more spe­cific.

WiTri­city has found itself on the los­ing end of two recent law­suits related to pat­ents on its wire­less char­ging tech­no­logy.

Will Graylin, an entre­pren­eur who has tracked the com­pany, says WiTri­city has struggled because the com­pany has had “a solu­tion look­ing for a prob­lem.” And instead of being able to make and sell a product, it has had to wait for car makers — and now golf cart makers — to choose to integ­rate its tech­no­logy.

“That’s very dif­fi­cult in a mar­ket like EVs that is just not there yet,” says Graylin, chief exec­ut­ive of indiGo, a Woburn com­pany that designs elec­tric and autonom­ous vehicles for ride-share and deliv­ery ser­vices.

The state of Geor­gia didn’t offer incent­ives to per­suade WiTri­city to relo­cate its headquar­ters there from Mas­sachu­setts, Benz says. He expects the com­pany will try to raise addi­tional fund­ing in 2025. WiTri­city has already raised more than $150 mil­lion in ven­ture cap­ital fund­ing — some of it from investors such as Fox­conn, Intel and Mit­subishi.

One more bump in the road for WiTri­city: it had been plan­ning to man­u­fac­ture its new gear for golf cart char­ging in China. That means the product would face a 145% tar­iff when it is shipped into the U.S. Benz says the com­pany has begun to explore domestic man­u­fac­tur­ing options.