The China Passenger Car Association has revealed that Tesla sold 44,264 vehicles that it built locally in August.
Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai currently produces the Model 3 and Model Y for both the local market and overseas markets, such as Australia and Europe. Reuters reports that new data reveals that Tesla sold 44,264 China-made vehicles, including 31,379 for export and 12,885 across China last month, a pronounced increase from 8,621 cars sold in July.
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These positive sales figures come at a difficult time for Tesla in the Chinese market. Sales of the company’s models fell significantly throughout May following public complaints about the company and increased government scrutiny. These issues started in April when a customer climbed on top of a Model 3 at the Shanghai Auto Show and began to protest the faulty brakes of her Model 3.
In addition, concerns were recently raised about Tesla using its vehicles to spy on national agencies, prompting the Chinese government to ban its vehicles at certain government facilities.
One key reason for the rebound in sales comes thanks to the introduction of a new cheaper version of the Model Y in China. This new version of the electric SUV features batteries from CATL that use lithium iron phosphate chemistry, making them cheaper to produce than Tesla’s traditional lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum batteries. The base Model Y has a quoted range of 525 km (326 miles) according to the local test cycle, less than the 369 miles (594 km) of the long-range version.
