Women Will Drive the Demand for EVs in the Middle East over the Next 10 Years—Lessons from Today’s Kuwait and 1960s USA

Andri Ottesen (), Sumayya Banna and Basil Alzougool
Additional contact information
Andri Ottesen: LSE Middle East Centre (MEC)—Sustainability Research and Consultancy (CSRC), Australian University (AU), West Mishref P.O. Box 1411, Kuwait
Sumayya Banna: LSE Middle East Centre (MEC), Arab Open University (AOU), Ardiya P.O. Box 830, Kuwait
Basil Alzougool: LSE Middle East Centre (MEC), Arab Open University (AOU), Ardiya P.O. Box 830, Kuwait

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 9, 1-24

Abstract: The Middle East, Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC), and Kuwait, in particular, are currently experiencing a similar transition as the USA in the 1970s regarding the empowerment and independence of women, fueled by a declining birth rate from four per women to less than two. In addition, the percentage of women with university degrees has been increasing at a logarithmic rate every decade since the 1960s in the USA and since 1990 in Kuwait, resulting in women comprising well over half of all university graduates. This has led to women obtaining better jobs and enjoying greater independence to make their own decisions. In the 1960s, Toyota and other Japanese car manufactures used this phenomenon to penetrate the US market, with significant success. Their selling points were lower maintenance requirements, higher reliability, safety, better environment friendliness and slicker interior designs, the last being especially adapted to women’s tastes. We believe that Chinese and Korean electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers will employ the same playbook with similar success, as the Middle East accelerates its readiness for the EV mainstream market. In this study, this prediction was supported by a quantitative questionnaire of 234 educated female Kuwaiti drivers from the ages of 18 to 40 in Kuwait regarding their preferences regarding EVs. The findings indicate that potential female buyers favor EVs for their environmental benefits, regardless of their demographics. Moreover, potential female consumers are highly willing to purchase EVs in the future under three conditions: infrastructure availability, environmental development, and affordability. We believe that this group, in particular, will present the greatest opportunity to EV manufacturers over the next 10 years.

Keywords: electric vehicles; women drivers; early majority/pragmatist (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/9/3756/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/9/3756/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:9:p:3756-:d:1134672

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().