While the Chinese car market has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, Tesla is actually performing fairly well, new figures reveal.
Data from automotive consultancy LMC Automotive and viewed by Reuters shows that Tesla’s number of car registrations in March jumped 450 per cent month on month, rising from 2,314 in February to 12,709 registrations in March. However, to put that number in context, we need to mention that China’s overall car sales in February 2020 plunged by 79% to around 310,000 units from nearly 1.5 million the same month last year.
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Sales across the Chinese car industry as a whole dropped by 43.4 per cent in March 2020 to 1.43 million units from 2.52 million a year earlier according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. On the bright side, that’s a 355% increase month to month.
Of the 12,709 new vehicles which Tesla registered in March, a total of 10,160 units were sold, data from the China Passenger Car Association reveals.
In a bid to stem the spread of the virus, Tesla was forced to close its recently-opened Gigafactory in Shanghai for a few weeks between the end of January and February. Tesla resumed operations at the facility in the second week of February.
News of Tesla’s sales success comes shortly after it was announced that the Shanghai factory will start production of Model 3 Long Range RWD and Model 3 Performance models in addition to the Model 3 Standard Range Plus RWD already being built at the facility. By making these new variations in China, local buyers will save thousands as they won’t need to buy imported models that are built at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California.
