Shanghai (ZXZC)- Robin Ren, Tesla's Vice President (VP) of Business Development, has left the U.S.-based manufacturer, according to Electrek.

Mr. Ren is deemed as one of key executives behind Tesla's success in China. His resignation has been confirmed by Ren's LinkedIn profile, which shows the executive assumed the role of Tesla's VP Business Development from May 2019 to June 2020.

Robin Ren joined Tesla in 2015 to take charge of the EV maker's operations in Asia Pacific, and took over the position of Tesla’s vice president of worldwide sales in April 2018, according to his LinkedIn record.

Prior to his Tesla career, Mr. Ren had managed technical R&D businesses at such leading global IT service providers as EMC, VMware and XtremIO, and worked at Yahoo. He holds bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees from University of Pennsylvania, where he became a college friend with Elon Musk, and a master of science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Ren has significantly contributed to securing the deal for Tesla to build its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, which made the automaker become the first foreigner one that wholly possesses a car manufacturing factory in China.

“Robin is doing a great job running worldwide sales, lots of work done. He was born and raised in Shanghai and has been, along with Tom and Grace and others from the team in China, has been sort of instrumental in establishing the China factory and making sure that gets done right and having a great relationship with the government”, Tesla's CEO commented on Ren’s efforts.

In China's NEV market, what Tesla does always catches a great deal of public attention. After confronted with a sharp decline in April, Tesla's China-built Model 3 was once again crowned the best-selling BEV model with a sales volume of 11,095 units in May, which skyrocketed 205% from April, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the CPCA, said it was a normal performance for Tesla that posts output or sales volume of 10,000 units on a monthly basis, while the downturn in its April sales was an abnormal one. By virtue of its powerful product competitiveness, Tesla has been well recognized by Chinese consumers despite the flexible price fluctuation led by its direct sale business model.