The preliminary sales data indicates that Tesla maintained pretty solid production and sales of Made-in-China (MIC) Model 3/Model Y in April.
According to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA)’s data, the overall wholesale vehicle shipments (local retail sales and export) last month amounted to 75,842 units.
That’s in line with the four-month average of over 76,000 units, and of course a massive increase year-over-year, due to the low base (1,512 in April 2022) caused by a local lockdown.
During the first four months of the year, the total wholesale sales amounted to over 305,000, which is 66 percent more than a year ago at this point.
This is good news for the Tesla Giga Shanghai plant, but of course, the market situation is very dynamic and challenging. Tesla has to constantly monitor the supply and demand to ensure that the plants are running at maximum/near maximum capacity.
Time will tell whether it will be a smooth year with potentially 900,000 sales (12 times 75,000 or so). One thing is sure, to have a chance to achieve such a level, Tesla had to lower the prices.
We are now waiting for more detailed data, of local retail sales in China and export, as well as the sales numbers for individual models.
During the first quarter, most of the Tesla Giga Shanghai production was sold locally (over 137,000), while over 91,000 cars were exported. Two-thirds of sales fall on the Tesla Model Y (nearly 154,000), compared to over 75,000 Tesla Model 3.
Because Europe has its own Tesla Model Y manufacturing plant, just like North America has two plants (one in California and one in Texas), Shanghai must look elsewhere for growth opportunities.
Nonetheless, the factory remains the largest Tesla plant in terms of BEV production volume (and the largest BEV factory overall) with an installed annual vehicle capacity of more than 750,000 Model 3/Model Y (in reality, potentially closer to a million).
