Industry dynamics

Tesla sells 32,165 China-made vehicles in May, exports 22,340 from Shanghai plant

Publishtime:1970-01-01 08:00:00 Views:26

Tesla's Shanghai plant produced 33,544 vehicles in May, with 9,825 retail sales in China.

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) China sales began to recover in May after sales in April almost went to zero due to the lockdown in Shanghai.

Tesla's Shanghai plant produced 33,544 units in May, up 212 percent from April, according to the CPCA.

Tesla's factory in China is located in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, where the Model 3 and Model Y are produced locally.

Because of the Covid lockdown in Shanghai, Tesla sold just 1,512 wholesale units in China in April. Its factory in the city produced 10,757 vehicles in April and exported zero.

Tesla's Shanghai plant stopped production when the city went into a phased lockdown from March 28 and resumed limited production on April 19.

Giga Shanghai began double-shift production on May 23, local media outlet Yicai said on May 29, citing a Tesla insider.

Previously the plant maintained single-shift production for a month since it resumed production on April 19 due to employee travel restrictions and factors including logistics, according to the report.

Production at Tesla's Shanghai plant is still in closed loop, and output has been essentially the same as before the Covid lockdown, and is expected to return to normal levels in June, Yicai's report said.

Before the Covid lockdown, Tesla's Shanghai plant was operating on a three-shift production schedule, 7*24, with weekly production close to 20,000 units, according to the report.

Tesla had expected production capacity to return to pre-Covid lockdown levels by mid-May, but the plan experienced several delays due to supply chain issues, the report noted.

Expected delivery times for the company's models in China have been intensively adjusted in recent days as production capacity at Tesla's Shanghai plant gradually returns to normal.

On June 2, the expected delivery date for Tesla's entry-level Model 3 electric sedan in China, priced at RMB 279,900 ($41,960), was extended by four weeks from the previous 16-20 weeks to 20-24 weeks.

But five days later, the model's expected delivery date was reduced by four weeks back to 16-20 weeks on June 7. The expected delivery date for the dual-motor, all-wheel-drive Model 3 Performance was also reduced by four weeks to 12-16 weeks from the previous 16-20 weeks.

While cutting the expected delivery date for the Model 3, Tesla extended the expected delivery date for the long-range version of the Model Y with dual-motor all-wheel drive, which is priced in the middle of the lineup, by four weeks to 20-24 weeks from the previous 16-20 weeks.

The expected delivery dates for the other two Model Y variants -- the rear-wheel-drive entry version and the dual-motor all-wheel-drive Model Y Performance -- remain unchanged at 10-14 weeks and 12-16 weeks, respectively.