Beijing (ZXZC)- In the first month of 2023, Tesla sold 66,051 China-made vehicles via wholesale, representing a 10.37% increase over the previous year, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Compared to the wholesale number of the previous month, Tesla China still scored a 18.32% jump in January wholesale volume, which defies against the industry-wide decline in sales due to the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays. 

In the past month, Tesla saw 39,208 Shanghai-made vehicles shipped to overseas markets, soaring 182.68% over a month ago but slipping 3.19% from the earlier year. On the other hand, retail sales of Tesla vehicles in China surged 38.75% compared to January 2022. 

Photo credit: Tesla

According to rankings released by the CPCA, Tesla China was the eighth in line on the Top 10 automakers list in terms of January 2023 wholesale volume of locally-made passenger vehicles. Specifically, the wholesale volume of the Model Y and the Model 3 came in at 40,903 units and 25,148 units in the past month, ranking second and third among all China-made passenger vehicle models after the BYD Song (49,865 units). 

In January, China’s homemade new energy passenger vehicle (NEPV) retail sales reached 332,000 units, down 6.3% year-on-year and 48.3% month-on-month. 

Judging from the overall monthly retail volume of NEPVs in China, Tesla secured 8.1% of the Chinese market in January, up 2.6 percentage points year-over-year. In the past month, China’s locally-owned brands sustained its 70.6% share of the entire NEPV retail volume like in December 2022, which climbed 3.3 percentage points from the previous year. The market share of new energy vehicle startups slipped 5.8 percentage points from a year earlier to 13%. 

New energy vehicle startups’ retail volume accounted for 13% of the total NEPV market in January, down 5.8 percentage points year-on-year. Startups such as Li Auto and NIO all saw their January sales remain strong in general. Among joint-venture-owned auto brands, Volkswagen’s two Sino joint ventures took a strong lead with 5,273 NEPVs wholesaled last month, which accounted for 37% of the mainstream pure-electric joint venture vehicle market.

Outside of China, a total of 74,000 NEPVs were exported by Chinese automakers last month, specifically, Tesla China (39,208 units), SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle (15,316 units), BYD (10,409 units), Dongfeng eGT (4,260 units), Great Wall Motor (1,244 units), Geely Auto (749 units), Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen (722 units), Skyworth Auto (668 units), Chery Auto (565 units), as well as other companies with fewer vehicles.