BEIJING, May 23 (TMTPOST)— Tesla China is making a massive hiring for research and development (R&D), underlining the U.S.-based electric vehicle (EV) giant’s ongoing efforts to expand its presence in its key overseas market.

Source: Visual China

Tesla China confirmed it recently made a large number of hires to attract R&D talents. Except a few in Beijing, these job openings, covering a wide range from automobile software, hardware design engineering, to power & energy engineering, are mainly created for its R&D center located in Shanghai Lingang free trade zone, near the Shanghai Gigafactory.

The hiring move, which seemed more unusual given the weaker labor market in China, suggests the Shanghai base is set to be Tesla’s second global headquarters, and the new China-made models are expected to come in the future, Shanghai Securities News, cited experts of the industry. In particular, the national financial newspaper, owned by Xinhua News Agency, noted that Tesla set the aim to create in China and make sales worldwide for its R&D team in China, namely,  to sell new models and energy offerings with Chinese elements by original designs and local development and production.

The R&D center in Shanghai, as Tesla’s first outside the United States, was completed construction and put into use in the end of last year. It consists of diverse departments involving the whole process of the vehicle development such as vehicle software, hardware, electrical, materials, automobile power and energy engineering. Tesla set up 28 labs in the center, which currently focus on development of software and hardware, process and technologies in China and joins in the worldwide R&D of AI learning.  With “all of its great engineers functioning in one facility”, the center will carry out more original developments in the complete vehicle, charging equipment and energy products, and be developed to the same scale as its center in U.S., the EV maker expected in last October.