File photo/Zhang Xiaoqing (NBD)

Dec. 11 (NBD) -- China's Tesla rival NIO is laying off 141 employees at its North American headquarters in San Jose, based on a filing with the Employment Development Department of California, the U.S., National Business Daily noticed.

NIO claimed that this round of job cuts relates to the company's recent partnership with Intel's autonomous driving arm Mobileye. The jobs being axed were those overlapping with Mobileye's, the EV maker said to media outlet 36Kr.

"Mobileye will be responsible for developing low-level systems software and basic hardware including chips while NIO will be in charge of vehicle system integration and developing high-level software," explained NIO.

The Chinese EV automaker also stated the significance of its North American team by stressing that "it still has important work to do". NIO's North American team will place focus on the research and development to push NIO Pilot into a Level 4 autonomous driving system and above as well as improving and upgrading the current Level 2 system.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn