There’s a glaring gender imbalance in auto repair, but women want to change that

This post is part of Mashable’s ongoing series The Women Fixing STEM, which highlights trailblazing women in science, tech, engineering, and math, as well as initiatives and organizations working to close the industries’ gender gaps.

Natalie Flores was seven months pregnant when she got a flat on a desolate stretch of highway. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen on the road, but when the tow truck driver said there’d be a three-hour wait, she broke down and cried. All she could do was wait for the roadside help before heading on to visit her parents. 

“I would be terrified if anything went wrong with my car” — or even if a light went on on the dash — she said in a recent phone call. So, a bit after her flat tire ordeal, she decided to do something about it. She went through her car’s owner’s manual to figure out how to change a tire step by step, and then did it on on her own. “Anytime I worked on my vehicle after that felt good,” she said.

Flores wasn’t raised around cars and had even less familiarity with electric vehicles, but the feeling of empowerment she got by working on her car inspired her to do more. She got involved with mentorship programs encouraging women to go into technical careers at her community college, Rio Hondo in the Los Angeles area, and was inspired to join the automotive technology track there. That’s where, despite her limited alternative-fuel background, Flores, now 34, got connected with Tesla’s Start program in March 2018. 

Tesla Start was first available last year at Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina. It’s now offered at schools in San Jose, the LA area, Seattle, Charlotte, Miami, and New York. It’s a 12-week automotive training program for students who will eventually work at Tesla Service Centers —facilities scattered across the country that service Tesla’s all-electric cars, like the Model 3 sedan. In the accelerated program, students obtain technical skills, perform hands-on labs, and learn about electric vehicle technology. Each week they’re taught about a different aspect of the vehicle, like how to work with a high-voltage system. After the program, students are placed at service centers around the U.S. 

Flores said she quickly learned an EV technical training program was going to be more than just changing out parts. “I didn’t realize that the computer is going to be one of your biggest tools when working with a vehicle now,” she said. Once she got going in her auto courses (and before joining the Start program), she had tried to get a technician job at Jiffy Lube, where she was scrutinized for being a woman. For an entry-level job, she said, they questioned her experience level, asked if she could lift items, and wondered if she could physically handle the work. 

“There’s not many people who do this at all, let alone women who do this.”

Only a week after graduating from the program in May 2018, Flores went to a Scottsdale, Arizona, service center where she got more on-the-job knowledge about becoming a technician. It wasn’t easy — she said she almost quit one day because an actuator, which uses electricity to typically open a valve, wouldn’t go down — but it was worth it. She saw a path from her coursework and job training that she could leverage to find a stable career in the automotive industry, especially as nearly all car companies decide to go electric. 

But it was clear that more women needed to learn about these opportunities. She graduated from Start with three women total. At the Scottsdale service center, she was the first and only female to work there.

Earlier this year, things came full circle, and Flores became a Start instructor at Evergreen College in San Jose. She had found the program rewarding, fulfilling, and crucial for job placement — and she was a quick learner who excelled at the coursework even at the accelerated pace. She graduated her first cohort in the spring, and is onto her second group of nine students, the summer group an almost equal mix of men and women. Already, a strong showing of women are applying for September classes.

She’s also working on recruiting at high schools and colleges so young women can be exposed to the program and EV-related jobs, which should become more abundant soon. Research firm J.P. Morgan predicts 8.4 million electric or hybrid vehicles on the road by 2025 compared to the roughly 2 million globally now. 

Flores advises women interested in this line of work to pursue those dreams. “I had people tell me, you don’t know nothing about this field, you won’t be successful.” She proved them wrong.

The numbers show Flores is still statistically outnumbered. Even if more than half of U.S. drivers are women, just over three percent of auto service technicians and mechanics are female, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2018. At Tesla, women employees are usually outnumbered, making up only 20 percent of the workforce, based on 2016 data.

That’s more than apparent for another female auto service technician, Fallon Taylor, 35, who restores vintage Volkswagen vans and cars at her shop, East Coast VW Restorations in St. Augustine, Florida. It’s a fairly niche job in what’s becoming a dying trade as cars get more tech-filled and classic vans become rare. She’s welding, fabricating new metals,  and making new seat covers and upholstery for the mostly German-made vans. With these, you can’t just plug the car into a computer and have a diagnostic page pop up with issues. 

“There’s not many people who do this at all, let alone women who do this,” she said in a recent phone call. She works with a lot of men at her garage, but she says women welders, painters, and upholsters have come through and worked with her over the years. She looks for people — women and men — who have a “good attitude, work hard, and are willing to get dirty, and be in the heat.” 

She tries to be out there with the vehicles so it’s clear she’s not just the woman who details and cleans the cars, keeps track of the bookkeeping, or makes the curtains for the van windows. “People ask, ‘Where’s your husband?’ That’s a big struggle that I’ve dealt with pretty gracefully,” she said. Once she starts talking shop, it’s clear she’s in her element and her gender isn’t as much of an issue. 

Taylor didn’t set out to build a woman-owned Volkswagen van restoration business, but she hopes it inspires others to do similar work. With a massive waiting list (of more than two years!), she’s not able to devote as much time to mentoring other women as she would like, but she said social media connects her to the growing effort to bring more women in auto tech jobs. Hashtags like #womenwhowrench show what’s possible. She often receives messages from young women on her social media page who say, “You’ve inspired me” or “I asked my dad to work on the car together.” 

For Taylor, these little things add up and make it more likely that the next Natalie Flores or Fallon Taylor will be working on cars and teaching other women the trade. Maybe that “just over 3 percent are women” stat will increase as fast as electric vehicles flooding the market.