Tesla China sold 11,095 Model 3 cars in May, which was three times the volume for April. This information comes from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
Tesla sold just over 3,600 cars in April, which was down from the 10,160 vehicles sold in March.
China was the first country to go on lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and this affected Tesla, as reflected in April’s sales numbers. Tesla was just one of the manufacturers in China that had to pause its operations as the Chinese government scrambled to try to control the epidemic.
Elon Musk recently said that Tesla was making rapid progress in lowering the production cost of the Model 3 in China. “We are making rapid progress on lowering the production cost in China, and we’re actually excited to announce on this call that we will be reducing the prices of the Standard Range Model 3 basically tomorrow China time.” This lower cost is a big part of what led to record sales in May.
I remember seeing several critics on Twitter mention that the sales from China would be bad or nonexistent due to the lockdown. I think Tesla has hit that bump that we all knew it was going to hit, and May’s sales are the beginning of the upward trend as Tesla gets back to “Tesla speed.”
Tesla China has already completed the factory shell for the Model Y factory, and I think that by this time next year, we will be writing about Model Y record sales beating Model 3 sales and comparing the two.
I do think that in America, Tesla may be affected more than it was in China due to the factory being shut down for a longer time. If that thought proves true, though, I am confident the following will as well: Tesla will bounce back even harder than it did in China.
By that, I mean that Tesla, having learned from its reopening in China, can apply some of that knowledge toward its factories here. This is what will help Tesla bounce back faster. Sales may be a little low in Q2, but I don’t think they will be devastating as some may have feared or predicted. This is partly due to Model Y deliveries beginning as well. The Model Y will definitely be the push that speeds Tesla’s bounce back to strong sales/delivery numbers.
Author: Johnna Crider
Source: Clean Technica
