Making EV charging feel effortless. Meet Autocharge.
The art of making it simple.
In the conventional model of refueling cars, customers have never had to rely on mobile applications. They simply insert the hose into the filler hole and refuel. However, our collaborative research with the Circle K Research team revealed that EV drivers are frustrated with the charging experience and the abundance of mobile applications cluttering their phones. Every electric car charging provider seems to have its own dedicated mobile application.
To significantly reduce the time required to initiate charging, we collaborated closely with business and technical teams to conceptualize and design the Autocharge service. This groundbreaking solution allows users to simply plug in the charging cable, and the charging process begins automatically.
Simple by design. Big on impact.
Our mission was to get drivers to switch on Autocharge in the app – a one-time activation. Under the hood it was a highly complex process, and at first it was a fairly long one for the user too. Long as it was, we made it feel short and easy. Instead of serving up one complicated screen after another, we broke the flow into a handful of simple steps where no one could get lost.
From the very first week, the feature proved to be a tremendous success. In Sweden alone, nearly 500 EV drivers activated the service and began using it actively. Three months after its launch, Circle K had already recorded over 30,000 Autocharge transactions, despite minimal service exposure. Currently, in Denmark alone, 30% of all Circle K customers are using Autocharge, and these customers consistently provide the highest NPS scores.
A word from Circle K
“I hired Michal to work with us within our newly formed design team in Circle K eMobility ~2 years ago. I was hoping to find a designer to help bring one of our mobile apps (Circle K Charge) to the next level and boy has Michal delivered. One of Michal’s top accomplishments include prototyping and iterating and delivering detailed production-grade designs for engineering to help us ship Autocharge. Autocharge lets users charge by just plugging in the cable and has since its launch received NPS scores of 9/10.
We’ve also worked closely together to completely reorganize the component architecture across our mobile apps using our new design system (LDS) – Michal has been a crucial contributor to making this a huge success and I constantly hear praise of his work from the engineers he works with and of the quality of the design work during presentations.
Thanks to Michal contributing with rolling this design system out in the Circle K charge app we’re now about to deliver much higher quality designs and development time is now significantly faster.
Aside from his work, Michal is a pleasure to work with. He’s super friendly, willing to go the extra mile and his input during our weekly design crits is always appreciated.
Would recommend Michal for anyone looking for a designer who will deliver excellent design work. Hopefully he’s not moving on anytime soon.”
Svenn-Petter Maehle
Head of Design, Circle K eMobility
Circle K in Norway
Norway is renowned for its environmentally conscious approach, characterized by its green initiatives in both natural conservation and energy utilization. Presently, a staggering 96% of new car sales in the country are comprised of electric vehicles (EVs). Recognizing this trend, Circle K has made a strategic commitment to heavily invest in the advancement of EV technology.
Given that customers are accustomed to the ease of refueling traditional cars, they also anticipate a comparably streamlined and expeditious experience when it comes to charging their EVs. Consequently, Circle K places significant emphasis on optimizing the user experience (UX) of its mobile solutions, which play a pivotal role in facilitating the navigation to charging stations and the charging process itself.
