Vanessa Farrer, left, and her husband, Liam Flood, sit in BYD’s Shark, an electric car from China, in an Australian store. Photo / Mridula Amin, for The Washington Post
When Ashlea Wooten-Chapple bought her first electric car in 2022, she felt like it fit her life perfectly.
It was a Ford Mustang - just like her dad’s 1969 muscle car, which was still sitting in her mum’s garage with his initials stitched into its leather seats.
Her electric version saved money on fuel, required less maintenance and had extra storage space that she could load up on Costco runs.
“I felt like Ford made this car for me,” she said. “It just makes sense for a busy mum or a career woman.”
But the marketing for EVs and online enthusiast communities didn’t always feel like they were made for her.
Shortly after getting her car, she posted about it in an EV forum - only to get an onslaught of unkind comments and “a lot of mansplaining”.
So, she started her own breakaway group geared towards women: the Mustang Mach-E Girls Club, which now counts 6500 members.
“EVs are new,” she said.
“It’s really important that women have a space where they can feel comfortable to ask a question or to celebrate because they’re so excited when they get the car.”
Wooten-Chapple is one of many people working to welcome more women into the world of electric vehicles, which has skewed heavily towards men for at least a decade.
Men are twice as likely as women to own an EV, according to US vehicle registration data gathered by the market research firm S&P Global Mobility.
Men outnumber women slightly among car owners overall, but the gender gap is more than twice as wide for EVs as it is for petrol-powered vehicles and hybrids.
“For EV sales to continue growing the way that they have over the past couple of years, it can’t just be a male-only thing. We’ve got to have women who are feeling comfortable” with EVs, said K.C. Boyce, vice-president for automotive and energy research at the data analysis firm Escalent.
“It has an impact on the ability for us to reach our climate goals, and it has impact on household budgets, with EVs being a lot cheaper to run than [fuel] vehicles.”
Why men outnumber women as EV owners
In some ways, it is surprising that the EV market is tilted towards men.
Women are more likely than men to say they are concerned about climate change, a big selling point for some EV drivers. And the main benefits of EVs - cheaper upkeep, home charging, fast acceleration and so on - cut across gender lines.
“EVs are a great choice for many people and a great choice for women,” said Liv Leigh, a Mustang Mach-E owner who runs an EV-focused YouTube channel with her husband under the name the Electric Duo.
“The same reason why they’re a great choice for many people is why they’re a great choice for women.”
But car industry analysts say other factors pushed the industry towards men. EVs cost more than petrol-powered cars, and men have higher average incomes to spend on car payments. Men also tend to be more willing to take a risk on an unfamiliar technology, experts say.
“If you look at the aggregate of women buyers in the US, they tend to gravitate more towards very pragmatic purchases,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at the car listing and review company Edmunds.
“Electric vehicles are a new technology to a lot of people. They still feel a bit unproven ... so in a lot of ways, they’re not necessarily a pragmatic buy.”
Then there was the tech bro culture that formed around EVs as Tesla sales exploded in the 2010s.
“In the beginning it was sort of that profile of, ‘Wow, Elon Musk is like our God here,’” said Caldwell. “That mindset definitely relates more to the male, tech-savvy type of consumer.”
Some of the marketing around EVs, which has featured Arnold Schwarzenegger as Zeus driving an EV, Will Ferrell putting his fist through a globe in mock-anger because Norway has more EVs than the US and Jason Jones reassuring men about their anxieties over “premature electrification,” deepened the feeling that automakers were trying to make EVs manly.
“That becomes the identity of the electric vehicle, and then it’s easy [for women] to say, ‘That’s not for me. I don’t want to drive that type of vehicle,’” said Stuart Gardner, executive director of Generation 180, a non-profit that promotes renewable energy and EV driving.
As EVs have become more mainstream and affordable, the gender gap has shrunk.
A decade ago, men outnumbered women among EV buyers three to one. Now, the ratio is two to one.
But some obstacles remain. For instance, public charging - one of the main concerns for anyone considering an EV - may create extra challenges for women.
“Some women I talk to are more concerned about safety when it comes to public charging,” said Leigh.
“Some of the public charging stations suck when it comes to feeling safe. Let’s say they’re at the edge of a Walmart parking lot where it’s a bit darker, so if you’re charging at night, that’s a concern.”
For those who can’t charge at home, tracking down a working charger could be an extra layer of inconvenience.
“If you’re a mum and you have 50,000 different things going on and places to be, it’s just one more thing to think about,” said Nica Mendoza, an Audi e-tron owner with university-age kids.
“In certain situations, I’ve thought, ‘Oh my gosh, if I had a little one and I’m already stressed out and I had a crying kid in the back and I’m looking for a charging station, I would lose my mind right now.’”
How to shrink the EV gender gap
Charging companies are addressing the infrastructure concerns by building more stations with better designs, Leigh said.
“The situation is getting much better,” she said, pointing to stations built by Rove, Ionna and Electrify America.
“They’ve taken safety into consideration. There’s lighting, there’s 24-hour security, and there are no hidden spots.”
Mendoza, Leigh and Wooten-Chapple are working on promoting EVs to women by creating online communities and social media accounts, organising EV driver meet-ups, and speaking on “ask an EV owner” panels.
In addition to the Mustang Mach-E Girls Club, Wooten-Chapple runs the @MachEMom account on Instagram. Leigh and Mendoza are ambassadors for a public awareness campaign called “I’ll Drive What She’s Driving” that showcases women who own EVs.
“The goal of our campaign was really to break down that barrier for women in terms of giving them a neutral, comfortable space where they can ask questions and learn more and hear from other women drivers,” said Kay Campbell, senior communications director at Generation 180, who helped launch the campaign.
“Word of mouth is the biggest way you learn about new products or cars … and if women aren’t hearing about it from other women, then it’s slower to materialise,” Campbell added.
Wooten-Chapple said she’s seen that approach pay off in the Mustang Mach-E Girls Club.
“I’ve seen multiple people say, ‘I’ve been lurking around in this group for a little while. I finally got my Mustang Mach-E. Thank you guys for all the information,’” she said.
“I really want to portray that driving an EV … is not just for the men out there, it’s for everyone,” Wooten-Chapple said.
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