Elon Musk momentarily showed up during the opening ceremony of the 2021 World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China recently. During his appearance by means of video, Musk affirmed that Tesla would expand investment and R&D efforts in China.
“Tesla will continue to expand our investment and R&D efforts in China. Tesla hopes to contribute to build a digitized future of shared benefits, responsibilities, and governance,” he said.
Last month, Tesla China’s R&D Center was purportedly approaching completion. The R&D Center will be planning the prototype of Tesla’s highly-anticipated $25,000 vehicle.
The EV automaker’s career page uncovers that Tesla China has opened a few jobs for its R&D Center. At present, the R&D Center has opened the positions listed below.
An Operations Specialist/Lab Expert
An R&D Operations Specialist/Expert Prototype Shop
A Test Equipment/Maintenance Technician
A Program Manager for R&D process and tooling development
2 R&D Engineers for the Interior trim team
The conference’s theme was a move “towards a new era of digital civilization” and “working together to build a community within a shared future in cyberspace.” Keeping with the theme, Musk responded to a few questions regarding artificial intelligence, digital technology, and data security.
One of the inquiries Musk answered posed with regards to his point of view on data security according to intelligent and connected vehicles (ICV).
“I believed data protection is not only an issue of one single company but should be a mutual effort for all industry players. [Tesla] is working with regulators on finding the best solution for data security,” Elon Musk replied to the question.
China passed a broad new data privacy law on August 20, called the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL). China’s data privacy law, scheduled to produce results on November 1, was designed according to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Musk explained much further and said: “Tesla has set up a data center in China to localize all data generated from our business [in China], including production, sales, service, and charging.”
Musk explained that all personally recognizable data is safely stored in China. Tesla doesn’t as a rule move information abroad. Data is moved abroad in extremely uncommon cases, for example, for spare part orders, solely after it is supported for transfer internationally.
“My frank observation is that China spends a lot of resources and efforts applying the latest digital technologies in different industries, including the automobile industry, making China a global digitalization,” Musk said.
