Elon Musk says that Tesla is building “a major engineering team in China,” and it’s not just for Gigafactory 3.

The automaker actually plans to have Chinese teams also develop car software.

Tesla is currently building Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, and it will result in a massive increase in Tesla employees in China.

At the moment, most people working on the projects are contractors, but as production is about to start, the number of workers at the factory is increasing, and Tesla is undergoing a massive hiring effort in Shanghai, including at job fairs.

Currently, Tesla is listing over 200 jobs in Shanghai on its career website.

Most of them are related to the manufacturing effort at Gigafactory 3, but Musk said today on Twitter that the hiring effort also involves software and firmware for the factory and cars:

Tesla is building a major engineering team in China, including heavy focus on software/firmware for factory and car.

The CEO added:

This includes the original engineering of new factory processes and cars. Great engineers will only join if original engineering is supported, not just localization.

Musk is getting involved directly as the job market is becoming increasingly competitive in China and companies are fighting for top talent.

The success of Gigafactory 3 and the Chinese-made Model 3 is going to be highly dependent on Tesla’s growing Chinese team.

Last week, Tesla Gigafactory 3 passed a government inspection needed before starting production, and leaked pictures from inside the factory showed that Tesla was starting part of the production processes.

Electrek’s Take

I like that Elon is recognizing the need for top talent in China.

The days of Chinese manufacturing being subpar are long gone. China is producing most of the world’s high-end technology these days, and Tesla is hoping to add Model 3 to the list.

Tesla has a great opportunity with Gigafactory 3 being the first electric car wholly owned by a foreign automaker.

They need to stack it with top engineering, logistics, and manufacturing talent in order for the project to be successful.

The market itself is different, and it makes sense for Tesla to recruit engineers locally to work on the Chinese version of the car’s software.

I think it bodes well for Tesla’s future in this very important market for electric vehicles.

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