TESLA Inc. is hiring public and government relations staff in China as the world’s biggest car market becomes a more important source of income for the top electric vehicle maker.

The Palo Alto, California-based company is seeking new hires in China’s large cities, as well as smaller hubs including Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province and Haikou, a port city that’s the capital of the island province of Hainan, according to a job advertisement that was confirmed by a company representative. The online ad didn’t specify how many people Tesla is looking for but the recruitment posting covers 10 cities.

The hirings are in contrast to Tesla’s media approach in the United States, where its communications team has largely been disbanded. The company hasn’t responded to inquiries from media outlets for nearly a year, and many of the people who were in communications roles have moved on to jobs at other tech companies.

Tesla, which gets almost a quarter of its revenue from China versus about half from the United States, has a factory in Shanghai where it builds Model 3s. It plans to export China-made EVs to countries including Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Europe as soon as the end of this year or early 2021, media reports said last month.

Tesla delivered 69,514 domestically built Model 3s in the first eight months of 2020, making it the No. 1 player in China followed by BYD Co. with more than 40,000 cars, registration data show. Tesla is however facing greater competition from China’s legions of smaller EV firms, including NIO Inc., Xpeng Inc. and SAIC-GM Wuling Automobile Co., which has a an EV for less than US$5,000.

Volkswagen AG’s Audi is also expanding its partnership with Chinese manufacturer FAW.

(SD-Agencies)