The recent price reduction on all versions of the Made-in-China (MIC) Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y in China might have a very big impact on the company's sales results.
According to various media reports from China, Tesla notes a significant surge in customer traffic at its stores and tons of new orders after the price reduction was announced.
CnEVPost reports, following local media outlet Sina, that Tesla received 30,000 orders within three days of the announcement on January 6. The news is treated as unofficial input (Tesla does not comment, according to the article), but we assume that it might be possible.
Another article says that customer traffic and orders in China's second- and third-tier cities "increased sharply."
According to ifeng.com (via CnEVPost), a mid-level Tesla executive revealed that the company delivered more than 10,000 vehicles in China on the first day of the price cut. That's also probable, considering that local sales decreased by over 40 percent year-over-year in December, and the manufacturer potentially has substantial inventory that's ready for instant deliveries.
Reportedly, during the two days of the weekend, more than 200 Tesla vehicles were delivered each day in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, another unofficial report says.
There are too many inputs like this to ignore them. We also saw that two out of three Tesla Model Y versions in China (RWD and Long Range AWD) have a slightly longer delivery time for new orders - 2-5 weeks, instead 1-4 weeks previously. The Tesla Model Y is vastly more popular than the Tesla Model 3 in China right now (about 2.5 to 1). The other cars require 1-4 weeks of waiting.
Of course, not everything is positive. Customers who bought Tesla cars in China before the end of the year are not too happy that they could have saved some money if only they waited until 2023. On the other hand, their deals - boosted by additional incentives from the manufacturer - were not bad at the time.
Anyway, January might be very interesting for Tesla in China. However, we are more curious about the future of the Tesla Model 3 in the long term. Will get some serious upgrade to be more attractive? In 2022, Model 3 sales decreased in China, compared to 2021.
