China-made Tesla vehicles sell 15,484 units in January, down 35%from December

(Correction: the 15,484 units include all China-made Tesla EVs. The CPCA said later that 13,843 China-made Model 3s were sold in January without mentioning the remaining 1,641 units, which we guess were China-made Model Ys. )

China-made Tesla vehicles sold 15,484 units in January, down 35 percent from 23,804 units sold in December, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The company started to deliver the locally made Model Y in small volumes in the same month.

The locally-made Model 3 sales in 2020 were nearly 140,000 units, with December sales up nearly 10 percent from November, a new high for the model in China in a single month.

(Graphic by cnEVpost)

Wholesale sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 168,000 units in January, up 290.6 percent year-on-year and down 20.5 percent sequentially.

Of these, 27,000 plug-in hybrids were sold, up 173.0% year-on-year. Wholesale sales of electric vehicles reached 141,000 units, up 325.8% year-on-year.

According to the CPCA, companies whose new energy vehicle sales exceeded 10,000 sales units in January included SGMW with 38,496 units, BYD with 20,330 units, Tesla China with 15,484 units, SAIC Motor with 14,398 units, and Great Wall Motors with 10,260 units.

In January, emerging carmakers including NIO, XPeng Motors, Li Auto, WM Motor, and Leap Motor also had excellent year-on-year sales, the CPCA said.

Wholesale sales of regular hybrid vehicles reached 46,000 units in January, up 72 percent year-on-year and up 2 percent sequentially.

Retail sales of new energy vehicles reached 158,000 units in January, up 281.4 percent year-on-year and down 23.9 percent sequentially.

China's new energy vehicle market shows a "V-shaped" reversal after Covid-19 in 2020, with new energy vehicle sales reaching 200,000 by the end of 2020, according to the CPCA.

According to the pattern of subsidies in previous years, there should be a huge sequential decline in sales in January, but with the implementation of China's new subsidy policy in early 2021, the actual sequential decline is only 20%.

The better-than-expected sequential trend in China's new energy vehicle sales in 2021 is mainly due to market demand for new products, especially new products such as SGMW Hongguang MINI, BYD Han, and Tesla Model 3, which are precisely positioned and have very low dependence on subsidies.

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