BEIJING (Reuters) – Tesla Inc. is looking for a design director in China as part of efforts to open a full-function studio in Shanghai or Beijing and design electric cars to suit the tastes of Chinese consumers, according to three people with knowledge about matters.
The human resources managers of the American car manufacturer, as well as several headhunters, have been fishing the industry for the last four months, the sources said.
They are looking for “bi-cultural” candidates with 20 or more years of experience, who are familiar with Chinese tastes and who can bridge the gap between China and the United States, they added.
Some candidates were interviewed by Tesla’s head of global design, Franz von Holzhausen, according to the people, although it was not clear how many potential candidates had been approached by the company and recruiters.
All three sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity and confidentiality of the issue.
Tesla and von Holzhausen did not respond to requests for comments via email.
China is the world’s largest car market, plus the largest for electric vehicles, with sales expected to reach about 1.5 million vehicles this year, according to LMC Automotive. It is also market no. 2 of Tesla after the United States.
The carmaker’s plans for the design studio are not fully developed, and sources believe Tesla will likely wait for more clarity on strained US-China relations under a new US president before making a final decision on the move and all the details. its.
The search for talent, which sources said was mainly concentrated in China, is in line with Tesla chief Elon Musk’s comments earlier last year.
“I think it would be something extraordinary … to create a design and engineering center in China that would actually design an original car in China for global consumption. I think this would be very interesting, “he said at a media event in Shanghai.
THEFT OF ACTIVITY
Musk’s interest in developing cars in China is part of Tesla’s broader drive to increase the company’s global sales volume by well over 500,000 vehicles a year, reaching just 450 hits in 2020.
All three sources said that Tesla’s search for a Chinese studio director began around September and that there had been an explosion of activity since December, when a number of headhunters used LinkedIn and other means to address candidates.
One source, who has knowledge of Tesla’s head hunting activities in China, said that once a design director is hired, Tesla will recruit the director’s team, which is likely to be around 20 people and will include designers, plus modelers, which help transform design renderings into clay models.
All sources stated that the planned center aims to be a comprehensive design outfit, one describing it as a “full-function studio”, which would not only help conceptualize the design of a car, but would also come with the final shape. – three digital -dimensional data- of a model.
The data could then be handed over to Tesla’s vehicle engineers, who are mostly in northern California.
Two sources said that Tesla’s Chinese studio will also conduct research on the tastes of Chinese consumers, as well as work on cars expected to be produced at the Tesla vehicle assembly plant in Shanghai, where projects are being modified to ensure that certain components fit into the engineers. specifications.
“They want to give the vehicle design a lot more bias than China; they’ve already done a lot here, setting up a major production site and selling a ton of electric vehicles, but it looks like Tesla is ready to take root, ”said one source.
This push could lead to a more independent Tesla China, added the person who has spent more than a decade in the country working on design centers run by automakers worldwide, among other places.
Chinese consumers last year bought about 145,000 Tesla vehicles, accounting for about a third of the company’s overall volumes, LMC said.
$ 25,000 ELECTRIC CAR
Two sources said a likely “China-specific” model was a smaller-volume generator, such as a $ 25,000 electric car Musk referred to at a September Battery Day event, which he said said Tesla could bring its market in about three years.
Musk said Tesla is confident it will enter the market with “a very convincing $ 25,000 electric vehicle that is also fully autonomous.”
At that price, according to two sources, as well as industry experts, it was likely to be a compact car, smaller than Tesla’s Model 3, which would be as affordable as some regular gasoline vehicles.
Compact cars are not big sellers in the United States, where larger and taller vehicles, such as the Ford F-150 pickup and SUVs, as well as mid-size sedans, rule the way.
They represent about 10% of the overall vehicle market in America. In contrast, compacts account for 25% of Chinese sales, or about 5-6 million cars a year, according to LMC Automotive.
That’s why the $ 25,000 planned car that Musk discussed would be more appropriate for the Chinese market, according to the two sources and industry experts.
“A compact Tesla car would do well in China as well as the rest of Asia and Europe,” said Yale Zhang, head of consulting at Shanghai Automotive Foresight. “It could severely affect sales of cars like the Toyota Corolla and Volkswagen Golf.”
Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Additional reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Edited by Pravin Char