Electric vehicles have far fewer parts than gasoline cars — no radiators, exhaust pipes, fuel tanks, fan belts or complicated gearboxes. As a result, many autoworkers, executives and politicians have hypothesized that such cars would require fewer workers, leading to mass unemployment in factory towns and cities worldwide.

Zwickau, where more than 10,000 people work for Volkswagen and tens of thousands more for suppliers, appears to have avoided those dire consequences. Employment hasn’t fallen off a cliff, and suppliers of combustion vehicle parts haven’t been forced into bankruptcy en masse. Its experience offers some hopeful lessons for other places that depend on the auto industry.