eMSP/CPO Charging Services Study 2026

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:

• Unaided awareness of charging service providers
• Aided awareness of the leading charging service providers
• Familiarity with the leading providers
• Brand perception (semantic differential with 11 items)
• Overall brand perception (market leadership, quality, image, trustworthiness)

CPO of choice / eMSP of choice:

• Actively used charging services
• Contract type for services with a standing charge
• Usual method for starting the charging process
• Usage scenarios for each charging service
• Willingness to recommend (NPS)
• Preferred charging service; proportion of usage accounted for by the preferred service
• Reasons for preferring a particular service
• Main reason for preferring a particular service
• Awareness of the preferred service
• Reason for choosing the preferred service
• Time of the decision to choose the preferred service

Brand health and conversion funnel for providers no longer used

• Level of familiarity with well-known but not actively used providers
• Attitude towards these providers (positive, neutral, negative)
• Segmentation into non-involved, soft-involved, interested, considerers, churners, rejecters
• Reasons for not using (or no longer using) the service

Price-performance perception:

• Perception of the charging offering by provider (semantic differential, 7 items)
• Positioning of the charging offering by provider (affordable contract or ad hoc prices, dense regional network, extensive motorway network):

Selection decision and app features:

• CONJOINT analysis of the importance and interactions of features when selecting a charging service:
  • Coverage
  • Plug & Charge/AutoCharge
  • HPC price
  • Availability and vehicle integration
• Importance of app functions: routing, route planning, automatic charging stop, in-app payment, monitoring of the charging process, live vehicle status, infotainment integration, charging history

CPO / eMSP provider profiles:

• Profile sheets covering brand awareness, usage and customer preference, consideration, rejection, disloyalty, NPS score, usage context, reasons for preference, decision-making point for preferred usage, and brand perception (delta relative to the average in each case)
• Profile sheets are available for 18 providers:
  • Aldi
  • Allego
  • Aral pulse
  • ChargeMap
  • E.ON Drive
  • eCharge+ (Vaylens)
  • EWE Go
  • Fastned
  • InCharge (Vattenfall)
  • IONITY
  • Lidl
  • Maingau Autostrom
  • mobility+ (EnBW)
  • Octopus
  • OEM-Angebote
  • Pfalzwerke
  • Shell Recharge
  • Tesla Supercharger

Payment methods:

• Preferred payment and authorisation method at the charging point

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.