This is one
of India's
largest electric scooter factories.
Notice something different
from, say, Tesla or GM?
A small
but growing
number of Indian companies
in the electric vehicle
industry,
from scooter
manufacturers to battery producers,
are led and staffed
largely by women in a field
that's long been dominated by men.
So why are more women in India
taking up EV roles?
And what can the rest of the world
learn from it?
Ather's factory
is the size of two football
stadiums and produces more than 100,000
electric scooters each year.
About a quarter of its workers
are female. But that's just a start.
Ather wants
to increase that number to keep up
with other Indian EV
companies
that have all-female staff
on the factory floor.
That's impressive, considering India has
one of the lowest labor participation
rates for women in the world.
Nasreen Banu
studied electrical engineering
and was the only woman in her family
to leave her hometown for a job.
After starting
on the assembly line at Ather,
she now supervises
a team on the shop floor.
Banu is part of something
bigger happening in India.
As the
EV industry booms,
more doors are opening for women.
There's this electric scooter
company based in Bengaluru,
which boasts an all female staff, who also...
dance.
And not just on the factory floor,
they're also managers, designers
and CEOs.
There's a few explanations for this.
More Indian women than ever
are studying engineering.
42% of STEM graduates in India
were women in 2018,
more than the U.S., Germany
and other large economies.
EV manufacturing
also demands different
skills, ones
that are more widely available
among women.
There's many more other things
coming into the business of EVs.
Design, color,
software. Skill that is higher precision.
But there's something else going on too.
For decades,
there's been a bias against women
working in the auto industry.
Many see EVs
as an opportunity to break that.
When a new technology comes in,
there is the ability
to take a woman on her merit
and not necessarily
have to prove historic knowledge.
This is Julia Muir.
She worked at Ford Motor Company
for two decades before
founding Automotive
30% Club,
a group
that advocates for gender balance
in the auto industry.
I've seen deliberate efforts by the management
to get women on the shop floor to do
just normal jobs
that normally men
would do. So gender neutrality
comes with effort.
Breaking the bias comes with effort.
So are there other trailblazers
outside of India?
Sort of.
In China,
one of the most successful EV companies
has its biggest
customer base among young women,
and they post about it on social media
Wow, this car is so cute!
As a response,
SAIC-GM-Wuling
has hired
more staff to address their needs.
One big selling point?
Customizable colorful stickers
for these bite-sized vehicles.
And Mexico-based Zacua,
which describes itself
as the country's first EV
brand, produces cars
with a staff of 40,
half of whom are women.
But these are outliers.
When it comes to the big players,
the Teslas and Toyotas of the world,
men are still in the driver's seat.
Transport and construction
are probably the two worst sectors for
for equity and equality.
Tesla reported in 2020
that 21% of its workforce
consists of women.
That number goes down to 17%
at the leadership level.
For one of China's
biggest EV
manufacturers, XPeng,
its 6% in top management.
Meanwhile, Rivian,
a California-based
EV company,
is facing a gender discrimination lawsuit.
Former executive Laura Schwab
sued the company last November, claiming
she was fired
for speaking out about Rivian's toxic
bro culture.
So what lessons do places like Ather
and Zacua offer to the EV world?
For starters,
having a more gender-balanced
workforce isn't just good for women.
It's good for business.
And having a larger share of women
in their ranks
can help
EV companies identify and solve problems,
like safety concerns over
EV charging stations.
Running out of charge and being stuck
somewhere is inconvenient for a man,
but could be life-threatening
for a woman.
Will electric charging stations
be well-lit? Will they be safe?
Will I have to hang about for ages
in some place while that happens?
Things like that
could improve EV sales
among women,
which are lagging
in key markets,
even though they make up a large part
of the consumer base for vehicles overall.
When you've got gender-balanced teams,
you'll immediately
be able to see those things
from a woman's perspective
as well as from a man.
And for some of the female workers
we spoke to,
the men in their family
have been big supporters
of their decisions.