Battery passport : designing a universal framework
EU Regulation
In 2023, new EU regulations mandated the introduction of a Battery Passport – a digital product containing lifecycle, compliance, and sustainability data for every EV battery sold in Europe. At Mercedes-Benz, this meant designing a scalable solution that serves regulators, partners, and millions of customers, while also fitting into internal enterprise systems.
Due to the company’s confidentiality, the actual object of my work can’t be disclosed and some of the following designs, numbers, text, have been modified, blurred or omitted on purpose.
Areas of contribution
Design driven approach
Detailed usability checks
Workshops
Prototyping
Complex data management
Key principles
User-centricity above all else
Collaboration as a core practice
Scalability by design
Transparency builds trust
Platforms
Mobile first web app for customers
Internal data management platform
Time line
5 weeks for the first prototype
Continues discovery
Challenge
Balancing complex EU regulations with fragmented internal data systems
Create a product that meets strict EU regulations around data transparency, accessibility, and usability (EU 2019/882).
Set up a new product team with the right product culture to drive continuous discovery, collaborative ownership, and scalable design solutions that could extend beyond just the battery passport.
We needed to understand how data moved across multiple internal and supplier systems, who the main users were including business admins, regulators, and customers — and where the gaps existed in our current systems and processes. At the same time, we had to ensure the design was feasible, user-friendly, and compliant at scale.
My role
Leading UX strategy, discovery, and design culture across teams
I was responsible for driving the product discovery process with the product manager and product architect.
My focus was on establishing a design-first, continuous discovery culture within the new team. This included designing both the internal tools for data collection and approval, and the customer-facing battery passport interface.
I led UX designers through research, ideation, prototyping while facilitating workshops to align stakeholders, business units, and tech teams.
In addition, I mentored junior designers, helping them develop skills in design areas, stakeholder communication, and iterative design practices.
Approach
Collaborative discovery and system thinking to bridge regulation, data and design
Forming the product trio
We set up a product trio (PM, PA, UX) and initiated collaboration with domain experts across regulations, law, engineering, and data.
Our first goal - synthesise all available knowledge within one week. Using common place for collaboration, we mapped regulations, market conditions, competitive analysis, and existing system dependencies.
Framing the problem
In a mini workshop, we refined the problem statement:
What data do we already have?
What don’t we know?
Where are the system and process gaps?
The first data flow chart visualised possible connection points with internal systems. This helped us identify unknowns early and prioritise discovery.
"How might we create a scalable, regulation-compliant digital Battery Passport that unifies data from multiple systems and remains adaptable for future regulatory needs?"
Defining users & scope of the product
Through daily discussions with business stakeholders, data experts, and legal teams, we identified two core areas
Internal Platform
For internal teams to collect data from source systems, manage approvals and ensure the data quality.
Customer Interface
A user-friendly battery passport accessible for millions of customers and users with legitimate interest.
Ideation & system reuse
We explored ideas for reusing existing enterprise platforms to reduce effort and increase adoption. This was a cultural challenge—convincing stakeholders to integrate instead of building new. PM facilitated ideation workshops to align on workflows, eventually leading us to a reusable platform approach.
Prototyping & iterations
By week four, we had a working prototype covering the full workflow. I led the design and iteration cycles, testing with businesses and internal experts.The prototype became our communication tool for approvals and alignment.
New team onboarding
When the internal enterprise team was onboarded, I led workshops to transfer domain knowledge and help them ideate within the right constraints. I facilitated user flow redesigns to adapt to technical feedback while keeping usability at the center.
Testing & validation
We ran usability tests with business stakeholders and iterated designs until we reached a balance of:
Feasibility (works with existing systems).
Usability (accessible for diverse users).
Viability (aligned with regulation and business goals).
Outcome
Building a compliant, scalable foundation and a team culture for long-term impact
Established a new product team with a culture of discovery and design-first thinking.
Delivered a validated prototype in four weeks, enabling early stakeholder alignment and funding approval.
Created internal enterprise tooling for complex data collection and approval, now in development.
Designed the customer passport interface, expected to reach millions of customers.
Ensured compliance with EU accessibility standards (2019/882).
Positioned the team to scale the solution for future regulatory initiatives beyond batteries.
Learnings
Leading through complexity with principles, collaboration, and strategic tradeoffs
Principles create clarity in complexity: In highly regulated environments, sticking to design principles helped me and the team cut through noise and focus on what truly mattered for users.
Collaboration drives alignment: Bringing compliance, engineering, and business together early avoided rework and created shared ownership.
Design leadership is culture-building: Beyond interfaces, I learned how important it is to shape how teams work — not just what they deliver.
Scalability is a design challenge too: Thinking beyond the immediate regulation taught me to design systems flexible enough to serve future needs.
Next steps
Scalability & future vision
We built a modular design system based on MBUI guidelines but adapted for unique passport needs.
Designed the solution to be scalable beyond the Battery Passport, covering Environmental Passports (EVP) and other future digital product passports.
Currently discovering a frictionless customer access: making the passport available via scalable QR code solutions beyond the battery casing.