The Volvo YCC

[Rocinante]

Found this the other day and though it was of interest, a car designed by woman, whose highlights include a sealed bonnet, as it is only serviced every 31,000 miles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_YCC

The Volvo YCC ("Your Concept Car")[1] was a concept car made by Volvo Cars presented at the 2004 Geneva Motor Show, with the stated goal of meeting the particular needs of female drivers. In order to do so, Volvo assembled a design team entirely made up of women, around October 2001. It was a major exercise in ergonomics from the perspective of a female driver.

Those who were involved during the several stages of the project were: Maria Widell Christiansen, Eva-Lisa Andersson, Elna Holmberg, Maria Uggla, Camilla Palmertz, Cynthia Charwick, Anna Rosén, Lena Ekelund, and Tatiana Butovitsch Temm.

On the outside the car looked, at first glance, like a mildly futuristic four seat coupé. On closer inspection, one could see that there was no hood, that is, no access panel permitting access to the car’s engine. Engine maintenance required taking out the whole front end of the car body, preferably in some establishment with the required space and equipment. This was not supposed to happen often, as the engine was designed to need an oil change only after 50,000 km (31,000 mi) and to automatically send a radio message to a garage a short time before any required maintenance.

Filling the windshield washer tank was done by a capless ball valve, right next to the capless gas tank ball valve. Volvo surveys had found (among many other things) that female drivers considered caps to be a major nuisance. The car featured run-flat tires, like those of wheeled armoured vehicles, in order to be able to drive all the way to a garage after a puncture and thus avoid having to change a tire by the side of the road.

Entry into the car was by the means of two gull-wing doors on the sides. The concept was a three door, four seat coupe design. It also had an upwards opening hatchback door giving access to the trunk and cargo area.

All three doors were motorized for a sensor based “keyless” entry. Pressing on a single button on the keychain automatically opened the nearest door, making it easy for somebody holding bags of groceries or other sundries to get the things in the car without putting anything down. The interior was maximized for easy storage and good looks.

All of the textile panels or textile parts such as the seat pads or the door sides could be removed easily to change the color schemes and vary textures.

The headrests had indentations to accommodate pony tails. The shifting column and the hand brake were removed from the center console to give the front seat passengers easier access to the large storage compartments located within the dashboard. The rear seat could fold up, making it easy for the driver to get a fairly big item in the car without opening the hatchback. The bumpers and body cladding were made from tough, dent resistant materials. The hybrid engine was economical and powerful.[citation needed] The five cylinder engine produced 215 bhp (160 kW; 218 PS).

[griston64]

It's not April yet !

[Thekilt]

I remember something like this but didnt think it was volvo, i have a feeling another manufcturer has also goen down the "Female design" route also. looks cool from the outside though.

[Volvo6]

I actually vaguely remember when this came out.

I applaud Volvo's more recent work on inherent male/female differences in crash test dummy design and how the body reacts differently under high deceleration, but this piece of work from 2001 does seem to make some assumptions that in and of themselves could be considered sexist - for example that a woman would not possibly want to look under the bonnet.

[Fergie35]

I researched this about 18 months ago for an article in Driver.
To be honest, as a woman I found it totally patronising.
It was claimed that the design team was female, I very much doubt it.
Jaki

[DaveNP]

I too was rather stunned that a car company would do something so sexist, especially when I followed the link and found it was in 2004, I might have expected 1974.
Following the links from the Wikipedia page it seems that the 'design team' were in deed women but I wonder where in the company they found them? I know some women who think putting in petrol and checking for flat tyres is a major inconvenience, and others who know more about their cars than I would and I'd expect women working in the design department of a car company would be in the latter group, equally there are some men who have no idea what goes on under the bonnet either.
Some of the press release goes on about how if a woman is satisfied with a car it will exceed the expectations of a man and it's interesting that some of the features like parking assist and automatically adjusted seats have actually moved into the mainstream.

[Thekilt]

To be honest, i dont feel this is sexist at all. The "design team" wouldnt of gone straight into designing what they would have liked, otherwise it may well have turned out to be different. When you are tasked with designing something, you have a clear scope which is generally formed from questionnaires of the particular users.
Thinking of all the women I know, my wife included and she wont mind me saying this, none of them look under the bonnet at all. She used to say "If there is a funny noise, the radio is turned up until it drowns out the noise, and then she informs me when she gets home. Now i have trained her a bit better to know as we tend to have better cars now.

A tthe end of the day, if you dont like not being able to look under the bonnet, or dont like the feminist design of the car, buy a normal car.

[Volvo6]

I think gender differences in terms of the inclination to do mechanical stuff on cars, even to for example change a wheel by the roadside, are probably narrowing. Old stereotypes about not wanting to break nails etc seem very dated now.

The general trend is towards both men and women knowing / doing less. A friend on Facebook recently posted a jokey observation that 50 years ago a car owners manual described how to adjust the valve tolerances, whereas today it contains little information other than to warn against doing stupid things such as drinking the battery acid.

If you look at people having bulbs or wipers fitted at Halfords I see both men and women. I'm not sure which came first, but cars are also getting harder to do basic things on, for example even on the V40 I simply cannot be bothered these days to fight the headlight unit while changing the bulb - I would rather pay someone else to do it, despite it still being a trivial mechanical exercise.

Maybe the gender slant on the concept car was misplaced, there is a subtle distinction between a car designed by women for the modern user, and car designed 'by women for women'. Also we are now looking at this with 20 years worth of hindsight.

[Rocinante]

It does seem like every female stereotype you could think of put in to a car :

Women don't do anything mechanical - seal the bonnet
Worried about breaking their nails - remove caps
They certainly don't change tyres - run flats
Carrying about groceries - keyless opening doors
Fashion Conscious - changeable colour schemes
Worried about their hair - headrests to suit
Handbags - large storage compartments
Obviously women are bad drivers - make all the panels bump resistant.

[EssexExile]

My wife says there's no point in showing her how to open the bonnet because she wouldn't have a clue what to do once it's open. To be honest, with my new Volvo, there anything to do anyway.

I did ask the salesman where the brake fluid reservoir was & he pointed vaguely at the air con pipes and said "I think it's around there somewhere".