Renault
Renault's Car Data Lab sits on a goldmine: live data from connected vehicles, strong engineering, a backlog of EV product ideas like Dr Battery. The hard part was never building. It was knowing which features an actual EV driver would use, before the team spent months building them.
“With quick customer feedback, we were able to build the right features for the app and create real value for our drivers.”
Thomas Andre, Innovation Lab Lead, Car Data, Renault
You've seen this pattern. A data and engineering team has so much signal in hand that it picks the next feature from what the data shows and what is easy to build. The driver's real pain gets assumed. The roadmap fills up with features no one has tested with an actual customer. Renault's Car Data Lab had the data and the engineers. What it had not set was the simplest thing: what does a win look like for the driver?
“We hadn't really defined our success criteria, what we expect. That is where your help is welcome.”
Thomas Andre, Innovation Lab Lead, Car Data, Renault
We started with the question the team had skipped: what does success look like for the driver? Then we went to find them. We recruited real EV drivers, put Dr Battery in their hands, and ran discovery interviews, wave after wave. The point was simple. Hear the pain before scoping the build.
Across the engagement we interviewed about a hundred drivers, and it paid off fast. Nine in ten charged at home on off-peak hours and knew the price per kilowatt-hour to the cent. Cost, reliable charge points, and route planning came up again and again. Features no driver cared about got dropped. The ones that mattered moved up the roadmap.
“If we really want to start from the need, we have to dig into what makes someone need this.”
Thomas Andre, Innovation Lab Lead, Car Data, Renault
We ran the loop through internal beta-testers first, about forty of them, then opened it to real EV drivers in the field. Over two hundred now use the Dr Battery POC, most driving the new Renault 5, and two-thirds keep coming back. The team keeps building new features by iterating with the people who use them.
Features chosen from the data.
No success criteria set.
The driver's pain assumed.
Features built with real drivers.
About 100 interviewed, two-thirds retained.
A POC validated by 200+ users.
Now the team starts from the driver. Before a feature gets built, someone has talked to the people who would use it, and the success criteria are written down. Weak ideas get dropped on real feedback. The ones that ship are the ones drivers asked for.
Dr Battery went from an internal idea to a POC validated by over two hundred EV drivers, two-thirds of them returning. About a hundred drivers have been interviewed across three waves a year that feed the roadmap. The features the team builds now are the ones drivers pulled for, starting with cost and reliable charging.
“We launched the POC. It works, and we build new features by iterating with the users.”
Thomas Andre, Innovation Lab Lead, Car Data, Renault
Legacy Three years in, the engagement still renews. The Lab is known across Renault's innovation community for working this way. Dr Battery proved the loop: put the product in front of drivers, and let their feedback decide what gets built.
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