For Women, By Women 女性为女性造车

　　Female engineers and designers are being tapped to create products for members of their own sex 用女性工程师和设计师来为女性同胞创造产品

　　It wasn’t too long ago that the sight of a woman behind the wheel would attract stares. Those days are over, and now women are a huge and rapidly growing market for cars.

　　But while women drive, buy and sell cars, there’s one part of the car industry that has long remained almost exclusively male: design. Even while the car companies are producing cars explicitly designed for women, the design and engineering teams are almost always all men.

　　But Swedish carmaker Volvo is trying to change that. The company recently rolled out the Volvo YCC (which stands for Your Concept Car) – a car designed and built entirely by a team of women designers and engineers.

　　So what’s the difference between a car designed by men for women, and a car designed by women for themselves? Anyone expecting a tiny, boxy, pink car with lots of extra safety features is in for a surprise. Volvo’s president, Hans-Olov Olsson, said that women want everything in a car that men want in terms of performance and styling, “plus a lot more that male car buyers never thought to ask for.”

　　Those things include smart features like sensors to make parking easier, a system that has the car automatically alert the service center about needed repairs, easier access to storage areas, and an engine that is virtually maintenance-free.

　　Other features include hollowed-out headrests for women who keep their hair in ponytails, and doors which open up, instead of out, making it easier to get in and out of the car.

　　The reasoning behind the YCC isn’t hard to understand. “We are part of a car industry dominated by men, wanting to attract a growing number of women buyers,” said Ollson. And if design concepts from the YCC catch on, it could mean a shakeup is in store for male-dominated design teams in nearly every industry.

　　不久前女人开车的景象还会引人注目。那种时代已经过去了，现在女性对汽车来说可是个快速成长的庞大市场。

　　虽然女人开车、买车也卖车，但在汽车产业中有一个部分长久以来一直为男性独占：那就是设计。就算汽车公司在生产专为女性设计的车子，设计和工程团队几乎青一色是男人。

　　但是瑞典的汽车制造商沃尔沃汽车正试图改变这一点。这家公司最近推出沃尔沃YCC(代表Your Concept Car——你的概念车)，一款完全由女性设计师和工程师组成的团队所设计建造的车子。

　　男人为女人设计的车和女人为自己设计的车有什么不同？任何期待看到一辆小巧玲珑、四四方方、有很多额外安全功能的粉红色车的人，都会觉得意外。沃尔沃的总裁汉斯•奥洛夫•奥尔森说，女人对车子的期望和男人一样，那就是性能和款式。“此外还有很多男性购车者从来都没想过的东西。”

　　这些东西包括一些灵巧的功能，例如让停车更容易的传感器、自动通知服务中心车子需要维修的系统、更容易运用的储物空间，还有实际上不需要维护的发动机。

　　其他功能还包括为马尾辫女性设计的挖空头枕，以及不是向外而是向上开的门，让上下车更方便。

　　“你的概念车”背后的理论并不难懂。“我们身处于由男性主宰的汽车产业，我们希望吸引日益增加的女性买主。” 奥尔森这样说。如果“我的概念车”的理念流行起来，可能意味着几乎所有产业中由男性主导的设计小组将要有一场大变革。