Women Are Lagging Behind In EV Adoption: Study

Volkswagen of America to invest $20 Million in 50-State Electric Vehicle Dealer Readiness Program

Women tend to be less familiar with EVs, and they have worse dealership experiences.

A new study shows that men make up 71% of EV owners and 74% of EV shoppers.
The study says that men tend to do research online, while women are reliant on in-person experiences.
Only about 30% of women in the survey were familiar with EVs. That number was 55% for men.

We’ve known for a short while now that the road to mass EV adoption has been fraught with roadblocks unrelated to the vehicles themselves. Now, we're hearing about another issue. A new study from the analytics and data firm Escalent found out the whole EV sphere is overwhelmingly male-dominated; Men make up 71% of EV owners and 74% of EV shoppers. That’s much higher than the average for all light-duty vehicles, where men are estimated to make up about 65% of the market.

It looks like the EV revolution is leaving many women behind. The answers why are both complicated and entirely unsurprising for any person who has ever bought a car from a dealership.

The study noticed that even the way that men and women research their future purchases is different. “Men are significantly more inclined to explore their options via online research (71% compared with 64% of women), videos (34% versus 27%), online forums (22% versus 15%) and vehicle-building tools on manufacturer websites (22% versus 17%),” the study said. By comparison, women rely on in-person experiences: 65% of women studied did test drives, compared to 60% of men. This in-person experience is the start of where women are getting left behind.

“To sort of overly simplify, men care about range and battery life. I mean, there are some other concerns in there, but those are the two big ones,” said K.C. Boyce, vice president of the Automotive & Mobility and Energy team via Zoom call. Boyce said that while women certainly do care about the range or charging experience, they also tend to have more questions in general that go beyond just the vehicle powertrain specifics.

“[Women] tend also have a lot of other questions about the [vehicle ownership] experience broadly. Like, how do I install charging at home? What does that look like? Where do I charge when I'm out in public? Do you know if it is going to take longer? Is it going to cost more? What is, you know, depreciation look like on an EV? There is just of a lot more kicking the tires, if you will, that women are doing,” Boyce continued. And as readers tell us all the time, many conventional dealer employees aren't good at answering those questions. Some treat EVs as an afterthought.

Nikki Stern, Escalent’s senior insights manager of the Automotive & Mobility and Energy team, was quick to say that the in-person car-buying experience wasn’t just the only lynchpin to the BEV gender gap. After all, you can get an EV from a company like Tesla, which doesn't have traditional dealerships and tends to have better answers to common EV questions. So buying experience issues don't tell the full story.

“Women are much less familiar with the BEV powertrain than males are,” Stern said. Stern said that lack of familiarity has a trickle effect. Women as a whole are less familiar and aren’t able to get the knowledge about the powertrain. Also, they’re less likely to know someone who has a BEV. “When you're less familiar with a product, you tend to have lower opinions of it because you don't really know much about it,” said Stern. Stern also said that women tend to use the same brands and products they trust or use and buy things based on things they’ve heard from people they know. If the people in your circle aren’t exposed to EVs either, then, well, it’ll be hard to have a positive, informed opinion about EVs. The study showed that only 30% of women were familiar with EVs, but that number was 55% for men.

As a whole, both Stern and Boyce said that there’s a real education problem for all genders when it when it comes to EVs. Most consumers don't have enough information to make a confident decision. Boyce said that as a whole, BEV shoppers want to know about battery life, driving range and cost of ownership. “[Shoppers] are getting information about it, but [shoppers] are saying, “yeah, not sure this gives me the warm fuzzies that [BEV ownership is] going to work for me,” said Boyce.

Stern insisted that to help close the gap, brands and dealerships need to understand what women’s EV concerns are, where women’s EV knowledge and familiarity are compared to men and figure out a way to ease those concerns and assist them in their buying process. Escalent’s study found that 38% of EV shoppers liked messaging that favored education compared to technology, environmental, practicality and emotional messaging.

Clearly, consumers of all sorts are in desperate want of clear and informative communication when it comes to buying an EV. And if the EV transition is going to work, it can't leave any of them behind.

Contact the author: [email protected]