Tesla Model 3; photo credit: Tesla

Beijing (ZXZC)- Tesla sold 11,329 China-made vehicles in China in September, ranking third following SAIC-GM-Wuling (24,386 new energy vehicles sold) and BYD (19,048 new energy vehicles sold), the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said on October 13. In August, the American automaker sold 11,800 Shanghai-made Models.

By the end of September, the price of China-made Model 3 has been over RMB270,000 ($40,014). On the first day of October, the automaker announced to cut the starting price of its China-made standard-range Model 3 by about 8% to RMB249,900 ($37,035), which will exert certain pressure for other players in China’s new energy vehicle market.  

Cui Dongshu, general secretary of the association, said that the price cutting on October 1 has been expected. On the one hand, Tesla needs strong sales performance to compensate its weak sales in Europe. On the other hand, the standard range version of the China-made sedan, which will be powered by lithium iron phosphate batteries, will cost less than those vehicles powered by the nickel-cobalt-manganese batteries.

According to the association, the retail sales of locally-made new energy passenger vehicles exceeded 125,000 units in September, jumping 99.6% year on year and growing 24.1% month on month. Among all these vehicles sold, the retail sales of the plug-in hybrid sales increased 55% from a year ago to 22,000 units while those of the battery electric vehicles doubled to 102,000 units.