Electric vehicles offer significant savings in operating costs compared with traditional gasoline-powered cars. By making the switch, drivers can save up to $3,000 a year on fuel and reduced maintenance alone.

Most EVs also have a lower total cost of ownership over their lifetime, especially when factoring in the incentives under the federal Inflation Reduction Act, which offers up to $7,500 in tax credits.

Women, who still earn less than men on average, buy 62 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. and influence more than 85 percent of all car purchases.

So why are they being left out of the new automotive revolution?

An August 2022 survey revealed a small gender gap in EV-buying interest: 53 percent of men compared with 47 percent of women. The gender gap is much larger in terms of actual EV purchasing. In California, the largest U.S. market for EVs, 76 percent of buyers are men. A few reasons help explain why women’s interest does not translate to purchases.

Start with the average cost of an EV before tax incentives: around $60,000. That sticker shock makes it easy for consumers to lose sight of the lower cost of ownership over an EV’s lifetime. At that price, EV automakers must address concerns that are more relevant to women’s car-buying habits.

In China, automakers have marketed EVs to women with an approach almost unheard of in the United States. In May 2022, Great Wall Motors released the Ora EV. Shaped like a Volkswagen Beetle, it includes a “Lady Driving Mode” with voice-controlled parking and reversing, and an automatic cruise control that maintains extra distance between vehicles ahead of it. It also features “Warm Man Mode” — one click turns up the heat and adjusts air conditioning — to cater to women who are menstruating.

U.S. automakers are not averse to catering to women, though attempts to make female-first products have not fared well.

In 2003, Volvo debuted the YCC, a car designed by and for women. It never made it to production, but some of its features, such as purse storage and computer-assisted parking, did trickle into Volvo’s U.S. offerings. Saturn launched a web series called “Novel Adventures” that featured four women in a book club interacting with a different Saturn in every episode. GM discontinued the Saturn brand two years later.

As for EVs, commercials for Ford, Audi and Cadillac have featured women prominently, but these are in the minority. One study sug-gested women prioritize environ-mental friendliness and safety more than men, but domestic marketing rarely em-phasizes these aspects of EVs — nor their relatively affordable cost of ownership over the vehicle’s lifetime.

It’s no wonder that 75 percent of women report feeling misunder- stood by car marketers.

What if the push to get women into EVs began not with marketers but with corporate employers?

Although men and women are both more likely to work from home since the COVID-19 pan- demic, the majority of employed women (58.5 percent) and men (64.7 percent) still work outside their homes, highlighting the importance of commuter vehicles to the U.S. work force.

Corporations have the resources and incentives to push for employees to drive EVs for work. Businesses can help meet their own emissions targets —and the government’s — simply by reducing the amount of gasoline their employees consume to get to work. In addition to converting company-owned fleets to electric from gasoline, that might mean offering an EV benefit package that includes educating employees on the benefits of EVs, assisting employees in finding affordable EV models suitable for different life-styles, supporting employees with charging stations at work and at home, and guiding employees on how to file for tax incentives and credits.

The global transition to electric transportation is underway. Commuters and business fleet owners who make the switch now will reap the rewards of added savings and tax benefits.

By getting more women behind the wheel of EVs, corporate America can help close the gender pay gap, since EVs come with a lower total cost of ownership than gasoline-powered vehicles on average, and contribute to a more sustainable future.

“Humans are terrible drivers,” General Motors’ one-page advertisement in The New York Times and other papers last week claimed.

The advertisement for Cruise, a GM-backed autonomous driving startup, argued that while “people cause millions of accidents every year in the U.S. … Cruise driverless cars are designed to save lives.”

The advertisement prominently featured the number of Americans who were killed in car crashes in 2022 — a choice that didn’t sit well with former NHTSA administrator and safety advocate Joan Claybrook.

“Using the pain and suffering of those deaths for self-promotion of an unproven and unsafe product is unscrupulous,” Claybrook said in a statement distributed by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Road safety has been a theme in Cruise and other autonomous driving companies’ messaging as they seek to win over public opinion and regulatory approval.

“Local leaders and regulators need to safely explore every option possible to reverse the horrific status quo on our roads, instead of blocking a critical technology with a strong safety record,” a Cruise spokeperson said in a statement. “Last year pedestrian deaths in the United States reached their highest levels in 40 years, often due to preventable human error, and the public deserves to know that there’s a promising emerging technology that could help improve road safety.”

Cruise won approval to charge for its robotaxi rides in parts of San Francisco last summer and has since begun testing the service in Phoenix, Ariz., and several cities in Texas. In San Francisco, Cruise rides are currently only allowed to charge in a limited portion of the city and during daylight hours. The company has requested expansion of approval to allow for paid rides to take place anywhere in the city at any time of day. The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to vote on that request Aug. 10.

The advertisements were part of a push ahead of the vote to approve the permit, the Cruise spokesperson said.

Claybrook said Cruise’s claims in the advertisement were neither “convincing” nor “credible.”

“There are real-world accounts about the havoc Waymo and Cruise robotaxis have inflicted on San Francisco roadways and its citizens,” Claybrook said, citing local officials’ concerns about safety incidents with robotaxis on city streets. “Their collective experience highlights the dangers, which have disrupted police activity, hampered firefighting and blocked local streets and intersections.”

A Cruise passenger was hospitalized last summer after a Cruise vehicle stopped before completing a turn, causing a crash with an oncoming Prius. NHTSA opened a probe into Cruise last December after reports of three crashes resulting from brake timing issues. In March, a Cruise taxi crashed into a San Francisco bus after inaccurately predicting its movements.

Nevertheless, Cruise said its first 1 million driverless miles had 54 percent fewer collisions overall than human drivers in a comparable driving environment and 73 percent fewer collisions with meaningful risk of injury.

Acting NHTSA administrator Ann Carlson announced last week the administration plans to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking this fall that could provide a new regulatory path for deploying large numbers of self-driving vehicles.

I’m a Barbie girl in a GM world.

A collection of dozens of Barbies and two Kens were some of the most-loved toys on my shelf. A doctor Barbie, rock star Barbie and even Cleopatra Barbie encouraged me to dream big. And if you were lucky, your Barbies would cruise around in a toy Chevrolet Corvette.

That pink Corvette, along with the GMC Hummer EV pickup and electric Chevy Blazer, made it to the big screen in the Barbie movie ’90s girls like me have been clamoring for.

Moviegoers helped Barbie earn $155 million domestically in its opening weekend, July 21-23, making it the biggest film debut of the year so far. Globally, it earned $337 million.

Cars played essential characters. General Motors’ vehicles got more than 10 minutes of screen time, according to Concave Brand Tracking, which monitors product placement.

The movie was an extended commercial for Mattel, GM and other brands. But it was also a statement about empowerment — powered by vehicles from the only major automaker with a female CEO.

The visibility helps GM play the long game of planting its products in the minds of a captive audience of mostly young women, a demographic with major growth potential for electric vehicle makers, said Bill Daddi, president of DBC Brand Communications.

The key, he said, is adding value to the movie and enhancing the plot rather than disrupting the viewing experience.

In this case, cars were a crucial part of the story, not a distraction. All the Barbies drove through perfect Barbieland in Corvettes shaded in various hues of pink, and when Ken discovered the patriarchy after he crossed into the real world, he chose the Hummer as his ride. A Blazer EV rescuing Barbie easily beat Mattel executives chasing her in gasoline-powered Chevy Tahoes and Suburbans.

The automaker received nearly $8 million in global product placement value from the movie’s opening weekend, Concave said. That means it would cost $8 million in traditional ad dollars to achieve the same level of total exposure.

The first weekend alone made Barbie the seventh best-performing film featuring GM products in the last decade, Concave said, a ranking that will likely climb as more tickets are sold. Transformers: Age of Extinction, released in 2014, was GM’s best integration, featuring six GM brands over 13 minutes of screen time. Age of Extinction grossed $1.1 billion globally.

The most prominent GM placements in Barbie were electric, a nod to the automaker’s goal to electrify its lineup by 2035.

GM and Barbie may seem like an unusual pairing at first, but some of their values are aligned. The automaker’s vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion is rooted in making the world a better place. Of course, that initiative is a business strategy that the company believes will be lucrative. But in recent years, GM has taken a definite stance on real-world issues such as social justice and diversity, equity and inclusion. And for nearly a decade, it has been led by Mary Barra, who has inspired many women in the auto industry. Barra has guided the company through industry tides and is transforming it through the shift to electrification.

In Barbieland, the Barbies wholeheartedly believe they have made the real world a better place by showing through all types of Barbies — lawyer, doctor, scientist, surfer, engineer, teacher — how much women can do. “We fixed everything so all women in the real world are happy and powerful,” said Barbie, played by Margot Robbie.

In Barra’s world, GM conveys a message similar to Barbie’s mantra: Here, women can be successful at anything — even as CEO of the nation’s largest car company.

Being a “Barbie girl in a Barbie world” was a dream when I was young. Today, I’m happy to be in Barra’s.

Stellantis is bolstering its creative roster with its first Black agency of record.

The automaker said TKT & Associates, through its TKT Collab division, will be tasked with reaching Black consumers for Stellantis’ North American brand portfolio consisting of Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep and Ram. TKT also is the automaker’s first female-owned agency of record.

The agency will report to Kim Adams House, the head of merchandising, licensing and multicultural marketing. House, who once led Jeep advertising in North America, recently added multicultural marketing for Stellantis North America.

The Louisville, Ky., agency was founded in 2006 by the late Tierra Kavanaugh Wayne. Its Collab division was created in 2020.

TKT was among 13 Black-owned companies chosen for the 2021 pilot run of the National Black Supplier Development Program launched by Stellantis and the National Business League, the organization founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900. The initiative provides the companies with training and allows for direct interaction with Stellantis leaders, business experts and Tier 1 suppliers.

The program sent the companies through a training slate that guided them on topics such as brand creation, managing finances and refining their elevator pitches.

Kimberly Bunton, CEO of TKT Collab, said the supplier development program is the reason the agency landed this opportunity.

Going through the program gave the agency the ability to interface “with a good number of divisions of Stellantis on behalf of TKT,” Bunton told reporters Tuesday. “It is probably supplier diversity at its best. Being able to go through a program and to learn the different personalities and cultures of the divisions and the people that we’re working with definitely gave us an edge in being able to craft messaging and creative around the culture of a company and connect it with the Black community collectively.”

TKT is thinking about opening a Detroit office to be closer to Stellantis, Bunton said.

 

House said Stellantis conducted a months-long search, reviewing “five or six agencies” before landing on TKT. The decision was based on the agency’s “creative, their strategic framework that they brought forward and a number of other factors,” House said.

TKT will begin its Stellantis run with a Jeep campaign. Now in its early stages, the campaign is expected to launch in a few months.

The agency created a video that was shown at the Stellantis African Ancestry Network Diaspora Gala this past weekend. A spokesperson said the spot, which was shown to reporters Tuesday, is an internal production and won’t be shared externally.

“Partnering with TKT & Associates to lead our Black audience marketing efforts across the North America brand portfolio will allow us to ensure we are authentically speaking to different audiences, strengthening relationships with diverse audiences and embracing all consumer audiences by practicing diversity every single day,” Marissa Hunter, senior vice president of marketing for Stellantis North America, said on Tuesday.

Auto shows are magical events and remain relevant and beneficial to the current new-car market. That magic has been wowing audiences since the very first U.S. auto show in New York City in 1900. Chicago’s auto show started in 1901. Denver has been organizing auto shows since 1902. Los Angeles and Detroit started hosting auto shows in 1907, spreading the magic of shiny new cars to prospective buyers.

So why are auto shows still relevant 120 years later?

They foster personal connections with consumers. The magic occurs when people walk around cars, sit in them, look under their hoods, kick their tires and inhale the new-car smell. The magic flows throughout the expansive show floor. Consumers look, compare, evaluate and add to their shopping lists. If a car is missing, it often is removed as a possible purchase. When most manufacturers participate, 30-plus new-car brands are connected with prospective buyers — all under one roof. It’s like a huge new-car showroom with all the makes.

Unfortunately, in recent years several manufacturers have opted out of this opportunity. What was fundamental and foundational for the first auto shows, showing off the magic of new cars, still exists and is needed more today than ever.

Since Detroit is the center of America’s auto industry, manufacturers and brand enthusiasts have leveraged the Motor City’s show to connect the public with big, significant and meaningful industry changes.

Bob Lutz intentionally crashed through the front plate glass windows of Detroit’s (then) Cobo Center when unveiling a new design of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Chrysler Corp., now Stellantis, drove a herd of longhorn cattle through downtown Detroit with cowboys on horseback to unveil the next generation of its popular Ram 1500. When Chrysler was DaimlerChrysler, Wolfgang Bernhard rode a V-10, 500-hp Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle on stage. Audiences loved the showmanship.

Automotive News Executive Editor Jamie Butters is right that auto shows have challenges today (“Detroit auto show poised to disappoint again,” June 17). Nevertheless, the fundamentals are as strong or stronger than ever. Between 2010 and 2019, auto shows saw some of their largest attendance numbers in history. Based on a newly published Foresight Research report on the 2022-23 U.S. auto show cycle, 1 in 4 households nationally that intend to buy a new car within the next 12 months attended a local auto show this season. And 3 out of 4 households attending auto shows are in the market to buy a car within the next 12 months. With this kind of motivation, why are automakers opting out of this valuable channel for promoting their new vehicles?

With responsibility for producing auto shows for the last 18 years, I have attended shows in the U.S. and around the world and seen the value. Many consumers follow developments in automotive and know which manufacturers and brands skip an auto show. They ask show organizers why brands are missing. Show organizers want every automaker represented, so nonparticipation almost always is a mistaken corporate decision made by someone who may have never attended an auto show.

Here’s my assessment based on years of watching successful shows around the world.

• Manufacturers, exhibit houses and local marketing groups need to recognize the unique marketing opportunities that auto shows create. These shows pay dividends.
• Auto show organizers need to buck inflation trends and hold space rental fees in check. When possible, even offer a small amount of complimentary exhibit space so manufacturers are encouraged to take more. That’s a big ask because convention center/exhibit hall space is costly.
• Media can and should play an important role, yet reporters need to remember the show is ultimately about consumers.
• Show organizers should work to include every brand possible, whether they’re sold through franchised dealerships or by experimental models. Consumers just want to see and compare the new cars regardless of the manufacturer’s distribution method. I’ve heard from Lexus, Mercedes, BMW and Audi dealers that they want their cars next to Tesla so they can show off the superior design and build quality. Show electric bikes, too. They are increasingly popular. As the Detroit show has done, let consumers test drive e-bikes. It’s good business.
• More interactive exhibits, including ride-and-drives, especially for electric vehicles, should be a priority. Lines for these types of experiential events are significant, demonstrating their popularity. Most Americans haven’t driven an EV, so get them started with a test drive inside an exciting auto show.

Butters makes valid points. However, throwing in the towel on auto shows, which draw in millions of new-car customers, doesn’t make sense. Auto shows translate into sales — and that will remain true for many years to come.