We saw an intriguing piece of news this morning, as reported in Euractiv.
This proposal leaves me with more questions than answers.
Lets take a look:
Do women face gender discrimination in car buying?
Its worth remembering that many women have bad experiences making big-ticket purchases.
Women historically have many negative experiences of being treated differently based on gender at show salerooms and repair shops.
Being the buyer but being ignored for your male companion is a common example.
No matter the money you plan to spend.
Theres no need to deal with a sleazy salesperson anymore.
Especially the kind who asks what color car you want before anything else.
Theres also plenty of research opportunities online.
Its not just guys that are into cool design, speed, and engines.
Thats a whole lot of time and money devoted to stereotypes.
So highly educated women are likely to be more environmentally friendly?
Well, highly educated women are likely to have more money.
We all know the cost of organic food and sustainable fashion vs. fast fashion.
And surely safety is more of a concern as you are more likely to be transporting children and grandchildren?
Isnt the bigger idea to get people using EVs over ICEs?
Im not clear on the logic.
A transition to EVs is inevitable as gas vehicles phase out over the next five years.
Therefore, subsidies are likely to become less of an issue for new buys.
Simply put, if your only choice is an EV, then you will buy an EV.
They more commonly live further away from work.
This makes public transport time prohibitive.
It is harder to find cheap electric vehicles than gas vehicles.
This means that people who will only ever own second-hand cars risk permanent exclusion from access to electric vehicles.
Further, low-income earners are the hardest hit by ICE owner disincentives.
These includecity tolls, harder-to-access parking, and other disincentives.
Plus, low-income earners are also more likely to live in apartments without off-street parking.
And lets not forget, women are rightly concerned about range anxiety and safety.
We see two dichotomies at play.
On the one hand, researchers see high-income women as the untapped EV target market.
Story byCate Lawrence
Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin.
