Despite Tesla China likely focusing its efforts on vehicle exports for now, the electric vehicle maker appears to be selling its cars in the domestic market at a steady pace. Estimates from industry watchers suggest that Tesla saw a 37% improvement in its domestic sales figures last week compared to the week prior.
Tesla China’s weekly sales figures are not released by the company, though the general trends in the country’s vehicle sales per week could be inferred through insurance registrations. These insurance registrations are thus tracked by industry watchers online. Even automakers such as Li Auto have taken it upon themselves to share insurance registration data on a regular basis.
As per Li Auto’s recent report, which was posted by the automaker on Weibo, Tesla China saw 10,600 registrations in the week ending July 30. Such numbers represent a 37.66% improvement from the 7,700 units that were registered in the previous week. With its most recent estimates, Tesla China appears to have sold about 31,300 vehicles domestically from July 1 to July 30, as tracked by CNEV Post.
That’s not a bad number at all considering that Tesla China typically allots the majority of its resources to exports during the first half of a quarter. Considering that July is the first month of Q3, expectations were high that Gigafactory Shanghai would be producing vehicles that are mostly for exports. And when Giga Shanghai is focused on exports, domestic sales typically drop by a notable degree.
This does not seem to be happening as much this quarter, as Tesla China still seems to be seeing a pretty healthy number of insurance registrations per week. This bodes well for the electric vehicle maker, especially considering that some buyers of the Model 3 sedan, which is produced locally, are probably holding off on their vehicle purchase due to the impending rollout of the vehicle’s “Project Highland” update.
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