Header IONITY Case

Case Study – Mobile Ethnography

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How Ionity immersed itself in the everyday lives of people with electric cars.

The challenge

E-mobility put to the test

IONITY has been introducing electric mobility to Europe’s roads since 2017 and now operates charging stations with green energy at over 600 locations.

The main challenge of the project was to better understand the classic everyday situations of electric car users and to uncover the problems they face in their daily lives.

At the same time, we asked ourselves how we could find suitable test subjects who, on the one hand, own an electric vehicle and, on the other, would willingly give us an insight into their lives.

The goal

What electric car owners really want

The aim of the project was to identify optimization approaches that would help IONITY to tailor its offering even better to the needs of its (potential) customers in the future.

The solution

Mobile ethnography with flexibility

Ionity mobile Ethno 1

  • One-week mobile ethnography with electric car owners in Germany with a mix of premium and volume manufacturers

  • Online-Diary for documenting vehicle use, charging behavior at home, charging behavior on the road in different usage scenarios (short vs. long distance), etc

  • Recruitment of participants via social media, preceded by a pre-screening interview to check their suitability

  • Flexibility through freely selectable time and order of documentation for participants to ensure the best possible integration of the research approach into everyday life – both at home and on the move

Key facts

What we have achieved

  • We have recorded and thoroughly analyzed the usage patterns, pain points and workarounds of electric vehicle users

  • We have answered the question of which charging destination drivers have set as standard for their vehicle and how often and in which situations changes are made to the charging destination.

  • We identified frequently used apps (e.g. A Better Routeplanner, Chargemap, etc.) and identified their specific strengths and weaknesses (e.g. display of available charging stations) from the user’s perspective

  • Concrete starting points for improving the product and service offering were actively put forward by the participants: for example, the desire for more comfort at the charging stations through canopies and catering facilities was expressed

  • There is also a need for regular maintenance of public charging stations to ensure their functionality

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