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US electric carmaker Tesla sold 18,318 vehicles in China in February, a 470 percent increase year on year and more than 20 percent of the electric vehicle market. The automaker said that with an increase in production capacity at its Shanghai Gigafactory, sales will rise further. Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association said: “Tesla has had a good performance in terms of vehicle exports this year.
In February, the sales of new-energy vehicle startups such as NIO, Li Auto and WM Motor also performed well.” The country’s sales of new-energy passenger vehicles reached 97,000 in February, a jump of 675 percent year on year, according to association data. Cui said the development of China’s new-energy vehicles had shifted from an early policy drive to a market-oriented track. The industry’s view is that the new-energy passenger vehicle market will achieve high sales growth this year. Tesla’s February sales represented an increase of 15.47 percent compared with January with 13,688 Model 3 vehicles sold last month and Model Y sales totalling 4,630 units, a nearly three-fold increase from January.
Tesla said that if consumers bought Model Y vehicles now, deliveries would start in the second quarter of this year. Tesla is improving its charging network to provide better support to electric car buyers. Currently, it has more than 6,000 super charging poles in China. More than 760 super charging stations and more than 700 destination charging stations are in use, covering more than 300 cities across the country.
In July 2018, Tesla broke ground on its Shanghai factory, becoming the first company to benefit from a government policy allowing foreign carmakers to set up wholly owned subsidiaries. Cars began rolling off the US$2 billion plant assembly line in just 357 days, a record for global automakers in China.
The company said the current capacity of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in Shanghai factory was 450,000 units per year. Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai has demonstrated an ability to sustain Model 3 production at or above a run rate of 250,000 per year.
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