Electric Vehicle (EQ) Tools Charging Time Calculator
The latest electric technologies come to life with the Mercedes-Benz EQ lineup. Consisting of fully electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and the high-performance EQ+ variants, Mercedes-Benz EQ offers electric intelligence for luxury drivers everywhere. My team and I in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz Group AG (Diamler - Germany) enhanced the design of important EQ Tools that help customers understand how to navigate a Mercedes-Benz EQ vehicle.
Designing the EQ Charging Time Calculator was an international collaboration that was critical to the business because of Mercedes-Benz need to transition to electric. Through this tool we are able to help customers find out how quickly they can charge up their electric vehicle at home and on the road.
Design Process
Role: Lead UX Designer
Tools: Figma
We were offered a set of tools from Diamler’s headquarters and we realized that the functionality and the branding of those tools were different from the design patterns that we are using in the U.S. The first tool that we focused on was the Charging Time Calculator and we saw that in its current state the tool could potentially damage the brand and dissuade customers from buying an EQ due to look and feel, usability and accessibility issues. Therefore, the design challenge was to recommend to Daimler that we collaborate together to create a simple and effective tool that would work not only for the U.S., but for all global markets.
Design Challenge
Our point of innovation and emphasis here was to ensure overall website usability and accessibility enhancements. Enhancing the tool allowed us to provide familiarity to users on the concept of charging an electric vehicle and helped us ease the worry on our users by helping them understand the estimated amount of time it would take to charge an electric vehicle. The enhanced tool also provides users knowledge on the different charging levels and the speed of charging based on a selected model.
Solution
Research
Analysis of Original EQ Charging Calculator - Diamler Version
We wanted to investigate areas of opportunity on how we could enhance the original EQ Charging Calculator to a more simplified tool.
First we analyzed the original tool (linked here) by conducting a brief Heuristic Evaluation to test usability through our expert review. Our primary thought process was to find difficulties in navigating this tool. We identified that the tool tips are completely inaccessible but central the experience. The copy is not intuitive for the US customers and does not fit with the overall MBUSA brand voice and tone. The main component of the tool which is the battery, lacks context on how to interact with it. Also, we saw that all of the charging methods on this tool are not appropriate for the US market.
Competitive Analysis
Next, we analyzed various brands such as Tesla and Virgin Hyperloop to create a mood board for inspiration on how the EQ Charging Calculator could display information and to get an idea of what the design for this tool could potentially look like. We found that these other companies utilized interactive designs that were simple enough for users to understand.
After our research, we understood that the charge time calculator is supposed to show the charging times for the batteries of each electric vehicle model with all of the relevant charging options for each market. Also that users should get a good understanding of the duration to charge the battery and its correlation to the gained range.
Additional insight includes:
Vehicle selection is optional and only visible if not already on a vehicle model page.
Since the charging speed (%/minute) decreases after 80% for DC fast charging stations, this needs to be visually explained.
In most communication for charging times, e.g. the technical specs sheets for the vehicles, it shows the charging times from 10% - 80% for DC fast charging stations and 0-100% for AC charging stations. Therefore, the tool should meet the communication values for each vehicle and show them initially as base for further interaction.
We should use a commonly known battery graphic or similar as base for the selection of the state of charge. This helps the customer to understand what the state-of-charge values are referring to.
For “Joy of use” purposes we should offer the option to the user to play around with the state of charge on the tool.
We won’t have real car battery images available for each model.
Not every charging option is available in every market.
Key Research Insights
After gathering our research insights and conducting the competitive analysis, we ideated and created various sketches to brainstorm the design for the Charging Calculator.
From sketches, I went straight into wireframes and designed three different options for what the tool could potentially look like. Option 1 focuses on providing the user with specific charging time data, option 2 provides standard charging time data and includes a visual of a specific model, and option 3 which was the recommended wireframe shows standard charging data and a visual of the model as well but also includes an interactive element on the tool. I presented all wireframes and a prototype of the recommended wireframe with my internal team, the MBUSA clients, the EQ Brand team and finally Daimler HQ.
All teams collectively agreed on option 3, and interestingly decided on making the mobile version of the tool, the main design as you find live on the website.
Ideation, Iteration and Prototype
After multiple iterations, please view the live Charging Time Calculator here.
Under the Performance and Charging Section
Final Design
This project is currently live on mbusa.com. We accomplished high user engagement on the site in which the Charging Calculator had 8.4K hits since its launch (October 5th - Dec 31st 2022) with a Click thru Rate of about 1.12% of the total page sessions for that time (750K). Special thanks to my internal team, the Mercedes-Benz USA clients, the EQ Brand team and the Daimler team in Germany for their support. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out!