BEIJING (Reuters) – Tesla’s sales in China logged their best month for the yr to this point in August, with the U.S. electric vehicle maker benefiting from brisk sales in smaller cities.
Tesla said it sold greater than 63,000 cars on the earth’s biggest auto market last month, a hefty 37% jump from July, but probably still down from August last yr when it sold 64,694.
While an encouraging improvement, its performance lags major Chinese rivals by a large margin.
BYD, the world’s biggest EV maker, said its China passenger vehicle sales surged 35% in August from a yr earlier to a record monthly high of 370,854. Other local EV competitors including Leapmotor and Li Auto also reported higher sales.
Like many other automakers, Tesla has been badly bruised by a protracted price cutting war in China where economic growth has also been sluggish and consumer confidence fragile. Its China sales declined 5% for the primary half of the yr.
Although Tesla has cut its local sales force as a part of a worldwide downsizing, a lot of aspects have helped recent sales momentum.
Tesla has since April offered zero-interest loans of as much as five years for buyers, while several local governments have made its cars eligible for official automobile purchases in recent weeks.
It also received a key regulatory nod earlier this yr, with the country’s top auto industry association saying that data collection by Tesla vehicles was compliant with regulations, allowing Tesla cars to enter some government compounds that they was once banned from.
An evaluation by China Merchants Bank International of Tesla’s China sales in July showed a 78% year-on-year increase in deliveries in so-called tier-three cities while its sales in second-tier cities resembling Hangzhou and Nanjing rose 47%.
Separate data from the China Passenger Automobile Association for Tesla China-made vehicles which incorporates exports showed sales grew 3% in August from a yr earlier to 86,697 units.
Deliveries of its China-made Model 3 and Model Y vehicles rose 17% from July. Tesla plans to supply a six-seat variant of its Model Y automobile in China from late 2025, two individuals with direct knowledge of the matter said. The move is aimed toward increasing the appeal of its best-selling yet aging EV.
(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan, Ethan Wang and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)