To make “Chinese-style” vehicles, electric automaker Tesla reportedly intends to bring a research and design center to China per a recruitment notice posted on its official WeChat channel. It was not immediately known when such a facility might start operating, Reuters reported.
The Wednesday (Jan. 15) notice aimed to attract designers as well as other workers to meet that goal and asked for applications ahead of the beginning of February. It did not say the location of the center and read per the report, “in order to achieve a shift of ‘Made in China’ to ‘Designed in China’, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has proposed a very cool thing — set up a design and research center in China.”
The first international factory of Tesla is in Shanghai, and it began to deliver Model 3 vehicles made in China this January. Musk rolled out a Model Y electric sports vehicle program last week at the $2 billion factory with an on-stage dance that brought about a strong online reaction. During the week, the stock market value of Tesla reached almost $89 billion.
The news comes as a report surfaced earlier this month that Musk said the electric automaker would create a future car in China for global consumption and bring an engineering and design center to the country.
Musk said per the past report, “We intend to continue making a significant investment and increasing the investment in China, making the Model 3 and the Model Y and future models also in China.” He also said, “Something that would be super cool … so we’re going to do it … is to try to create a China design and engineering center to actually design an original car in China for worldwide consumption. I think this will be very exciting.”
The electric automaker also reported that it would start production work on a Model Y crossover vehicle at its Gigafactory in Shanghai.
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