Tesla execs join BMW’s former electric vehicle leadership at new Chinese startup

In a surprising turn of event last month, several BMW executives in the automaker’s electric vehicle leadership, also known as the BMW ‘i’ brand, left the German automaker to join a newly formed Chinese EV startup, Future Mobility Corp, backed by Tencent Holdings.

Now Electrek has learned that two Tesla executive joined the BMW leadership at Future Mobility.

Stephen Ivsan, an 11-year veteran of Continental, was working on Tesla’s supply chain for the past 4 years and he held the position of Director of Vehicle Purchasing for the past 2 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He joined Future Mobility Corp as Vice-President of Supply Chain just last week. He describes his role on his profile:

“Lead for all Direct and Indirect Material Purchasing, Supplier Quality as well as Inbound and Outbound Logistics”

A few weeks before Ivsan’s move, another supply chain executive from Tesla, Mark Duchesne, also joined the Chinese startup. Duchesne, a 22-year veteran at Toyota, joined Tesla in 2011 where he held several roles according to his LinkedIn profile – more recently as ‘Director of Manufacturing’ and ‘Director – Supply Chain Manufacturing & Assembly Project Engineering’.

Duchesne joined Future Mobility as Vice President of Manufacturing Operations last month.

Aside from poaching executives from leading electric vehicle companies, not much is known about the mysterious Chinese startup as of now. While the company appears to be a separate entity, it could be related to another EV investment made by Tencent Holdings last year.

The group is involved in the NextEV project, alongside other Chinese tech tycoons. The company is reportedly developing an electric supercar and it already raised over $500 million. In December, it was revealed that the group put former Cisco and Motorola CTO Padmasree Warrior in charge of the firm’s US operations.

Featured Image: BMW’s NEXT 100 concept car.