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Concerns, including safety in load points and range anxiety, mean that women are left behind men in the transition to electric vehicles, which causes action calls to reduce the gender gap.
While it has been found that women make more sustainable decisions in many areas, worldwide men are more likely to adopt change to EVs. Auto Trader’s 2023 survey, no driver left behind: Women and The Journey To Electric, discovered that one third of men in the United Kingdom would consider an EV compared to a fifth of women.
Multiple studies have shown that women control or influence most purchases, including cars. But some believe that the understanding of the needs and preferences of buyers is weakened by the sub -presentation of women in employment in the automobile sector, which could cost the industry and decelerate the deployment of EV.
Concerns about new technologies are common to all, except security, it is a particular topic for women during transition to EVs. Range anxiety is a concern for many women who consider change, says Rebecca Day, executive and co -founder director of She’s Electric, a company based in the United Kingdom that focuses on encouraging women to consider electric vehicles. Women may be worried about staying in Cementing when the battery charge is exhausted, for example.
Another serious problem is security at load points. Kate Tyrrell co -founded the security rating system after feeling insecure when loading her EV. The service evaluates the safety of load points throughout the United Kingdom and gives a five -star score.
“It seems quite worrying to me the number of sites that are poorly enlightened or placed in areas that are not visible to the traffic that passes,” says Tyrrell. “This becomes a concern for personal security from a female perspective.”
When an electric car is connected to a loading point, for example, the controller is effectively trapped, since there are no EV Exect buttons. To leave the cargo station, drivers must first leave their vehicle and disconnect.
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“You are essentially a sitting duck, which is an awkward thought,” says Tyrrell, and points out that you can’t put your car by car while loading. “When you are literally tied to a machine in an area that people cannot see, without a fast escape route, that is a really terrifying experience.”
The “non -trader driver” survey found that only 43 percent of women surveyed would feel safe using public loaders.
The United Kingdom government recently reconfirmed 2030 as the limit for sales of new gas and diesel cars, although diluted Rules to allow the sale of complete and plug -in hybrid vehicles until 2035. But Tyrrell says that the cargo panorama in the United Kingdom is already an obstacle to the adoption of EV. “If we cannot solve this by 2030, I don’t know how we are going to shorten that gender gap.”
Melanie ShuffleBotham is co -founder and Zapmap operations director, an application and service that maps the EV loading points in the United Kingdom, which shows the type of charger and how many points are available.
“As the load network was built, these fast loaders were sometimes put on … on the back of a parking lot” and they were “a bit isolated,” he says, but “now that model has really advanced a lot.”
ShuffleBotham adds that people in the sector are now thinking more about the user’s experience, since the number of cargo centers in the United Kingdom has grown from 28,460 at the end of 2021 to more than 73,000 at the end of 2024, according to Zapmap data.
She says that there is now a “complete category of what we call destination loaders”: high power loaders installed in convenient places such as gyms and supermarkets where people normally need to park.
Another factor in the gender gap EV may be that they have generally been marketed for men. “Women have been excluded, ignored, sponsored and meek by brands, marketing and industry, almost to the point of total alienation,” wrote Erin Baker, editorial director of Auto Trader UK and author of the report No Driver Left Behind.
A research participant said they wanted the pieces and functions of electric vehicles simply explained in the “language of the secular person.”
Day, from She’s Electric, says that EVs have been marketed as “spacecraft”, but a majority of women “just want a car.” She adds that a difficulty selling EV is that cars are no longer simply products, but imply changes in lifestyle and should be marketed in this way.
The day remembers that they are part of panels where women’s questions about how long they would have to wait for the vehicle to be removed.
“You have to be really honest about this … you can’t sit there [as if] It will be completely free of pain and this is some kind of utopia, ”she says.
Looking towards the future of the positions, Tyrrell says: “I would like to see legislation for the industry where security cameras and lighting are mandatory.
“The industry also lacks a regulatory body to govern the quality in the delivery of the site, which is something that we desperately need to protect the evidence of the future,” he adds.