While Tesla first made a splash with the original Roadster, it was the 2012 release of the Model S that truly put the company on the map. The Model S proved that an electric car could also double as a luxury sedan, and the vehicle would go on to win a seemingly endless number of awards. In fact, a number of publications last month championed the Model S as the “car of the decade.”
Since then, Tesla’s product line has expanded rapidly in a relatively short period of time. Over the last few years, Tesla released the Model X and the Model 3, with the latter set to become the best-selling Tesla vehicle of all-time. Looking ahead, Tesla’s vehicle pipeline is ambitious, to say the least. Aside from the forthcoming release of the Model Y — which is essentially a crossover version of the Model 3 — Tesla is also planning to introduce a next-gen Roadster, the Tesla Semi, and last but not least, the somewhat polarizing Cybertruck.
And as if that weren’t enough, the company is seemingly intent on designing a car tailor-made for the Chinese market. During Elon Musk’s recent appearance at the company’s Gigafactory 3 event in Shanghai, the Tesla CEO said the company was toying with the idea of opening up a design center in the country to help create an “original car” for the market there.
Just one week later, Tesla officially said it plans to open up a design and research center in China. The announcement came via Tesla’s WeChat account and notes that the company is looking for stellar designers to help create Chinese-style Tesla vehicles.
“Let the most beautiful Chinese art be integrated into the future-oriented Tesla,” one of the adverts reads.
While most of the vehicles in the ad feature existing Tesla cars, there’s one concept that we haven’t yet seen before, which can be seen below:
The design — which is smaller than a Model 3 — is, of course, nothing but a concept but underscores that Tesla, in the interest of making further inroads in China, is open to coming up with some original and unique designs.
