Giga Shanghai, Tesla’s first Asian factory, is turning out to be one of the brand’s most successful bets in recent times. Built in a record time of just one year, the factory has allowed Tesla to significantly improve its competitiveness in that market: duty-free and included in the lists of state subsidies; the nationally manufactured Model 3 is by far the undisputed leader in electric car sales in China.
However, the facility will not only host automobile production but will also have a design and development center. At the time, Elon Musk announced that Tesla had the objective of developing an electric car, “according to Chinese tastes” at Giga Shanghai, manufactured at the Asian plant but sold worldwide.
Along with this announcement, Musk published a sketch of what looked like a smaller model than the Model 3 and Model Y. Although initially it was thought that said vehicle would be a compact of the C segment, everything seems to indicate that this project will be assigned to Giga Berlin, which could mean that the Tesla “made in China” will be a compact SUV.
In any case, Tesla is already working on its new scion, as it has begun to publish job offers related to car design on Weibo: the brand is looking for, among other things, a chief designer, a creative manager, a designer of senior automobiles, a specialist in design quality, graphic designers, and content managers.
Even though everything seems to indicate that the creation of a design and development center in Giga Shanghai is imminent, the Tesla project “made in China” still has many years of work ahead of it, at the time. Musk himself confirmed that for the time the brand would focus on its current projects (Model Y, Cybertruck, Semi, Roadster …).
However, the Chinese model could be one of the cornerstones of Tesla’s hypothetical “Master Plan 3”, including the compact, a minivan, and a pick-up smaller than the Cybertruck. In any case, for the moment, Tesla seems more interested in cementing its current position through Model 3 and Model Y, leaving other projects for the future.