eMSP/CPO Charging Services Study 2025

Segmentation criteria:

• Vehicle (make, max DC charging capacity, private vs. company car, employer contribution to charging costs)
• EV experience as main segmentation criteria of the study
• Driving habits (mileage per year and per weekday)
• Charging behavior (charging locations, charging situations, charging frequencies, charging preferences)
• Living situation (type of house, type of city)
• ‘Charging types’ derived from charging behaviour, living situation and driving habits (by means of a statistical cluster analysis)
• Demographics (age, gender, income)

Customer Journey to the preferred charging service:

• Price-performance customer type (importance of price in relation to performance)
• First touchpoint with the charging service currently preferred
• Research-oriented customer type (effort invested in research)
• Research locations
• Exposure and perception of advertisments
• Proactive contact by charging service providers
• Expectations re car dealers and car brands regarding (OEM-branded) charging offers

Brand image of CPOs and eMSPs:

• ungestützte Bekanntheit von Ladedienste-Anbietern
• gestützte Bekanntheit mit den wichtigsten von Ladedienste-Anbietern
• Vertrautheit mit den wichtigsten Anbietern
• Markenwahrnehmung (Semantisches Differenzial mit 11 Ausprägungen)
• Gesamtmarkenwahrnehmung (Marktführerschaft, Qualität, Image, Vertrauenswürdigkeit)

CPO of choice / eMSP of choice:

• Actively used charging services
• Preferred charging services, derived from that:
  • Market shares of the most important providers or provider groups: supra-regional energy suppliers, municipal utilities, CPOs, roaming providers, OEMs, retailers, employers
  • Splits according to private and company cars
  • Split by premium/non-premium/Tesla
  • Split by EV adopter segments, i.e. previous EV experience
• Willingness to recommend/Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for charging services
• Criteria for preferred use of a charging service
• Most important criterion for preferred use

Decision for CPO of Choice (CONJOINT analysis)

• Benefit values for
  • Price
  • Coverage
  • Type of electricity
  • Ad hoc payment options
  • Plug&Charge charging option
  • Roaming
  • Availability forecast
• Interactive simulator tool with filter option based on previous EV experience and other features

Relevance of features and filters in charging apps (KANO analysis):

• 27 app features and filters tested
• Per app feature / filter:
  • Basic factors
  • Performance factors
  • Excitement factors
  • Rejection
  • Irrelevance

Loyalty / customer retention:

• Self-assessment ‘customer retention type’
• Moment of provider selection (OEM offers vs. non-OEM offers)
• Churn rates of various providers
• For those who have left: reasons for churn
• For those who have not left: reasons for possible churn
• Moments of truth: expected reaction to changes in tariffs or other offer characteristics

CPO/eMSP company profiles:

• Profiles with market share, NPS value, usage situations, reasons for preference, time for decision of preferred service provider, brand perception and possible reasons for disloyalty (for all: delta to average)
• Providers evaluated: Aral pulse, ChargeMap, ChargePoint, eCharge+ (vaylens), Maingau Autostrom, Elli, E.ON Drive, EWE Go, IONITY, mobility+ (EnBW), Shell Recharge, Tesla Supercharger, other municipal utilities, retailers, OEM offers (excluding Tesla), employer offers, etc.

Payment methods:

• Currently used payment methods
• Preferred payment methods
• Methods used to start the charging process

Only owners and drivers of fully battery-electric e-cars were surveyed for the study. The average EV ownership experience of the respondents was 2 to 3 years. All respondents regularly charge in public spaces.

The study is mainly aimed at business developers, product managers and marketing experts at charge point operators (CPOs), providers of eMSP services and car manufacturers or importers with their own eMSP offering.

The eMSP / CPO Charging Services study provides the competitive position of all provider groups and large individual providers. It shows eMSP provider groups and large individual providers how their market shares have developed, the most important reasons for use and when and why customers switch to another provider. This enables CPOs and eMSPs to improve the strengths and weaknesses of their own offerings. Product managers receive a qualified basis for the development or revision of their own offers and tariff structures.

Many exciting findings only become apparent when the results are evaluated separately according to important customer groups. This allows providers to target their offers to different user segments in a differentiated way. Thanks to the high sample size, subscribers to the study can split the results in the interactive dashboard as they wish and analyse them in detail.

Since 2018, USCALE has been systematically surveying EV drivers about their expectations and experiences at all touchpoints of the e-mobile customer journey. You can find an overview of all USCALE focus studies HERE.

We show extracts from other studies in the LinkedIn articles by USCALE and Axel Sprenger, our company founder.

If you have any questions, please contact us at contact@uscale.digital.