After Tesla could not retain its last year's victory as the best-selling model in Europe and even fell out of the top three on the Old Continent, now the American brand has also lost ground in the largest car market in the world - China.
The latest ranking regarding sales of new electric vehicles in China showed a very strange, quite expected trend. And that is that Tesla is losing the Chinese market, with BYD and Wuling already ahead of it. In the third week of January, 55,000 BYD cars were sold in China, 11,700 Wulings and only 10,000 Teslas. The predictions are that the American brand will soon be overtaken and overtaken by other Chinese brands that are currently on its heels - LiXiang (9,500 units) and Xpeng (9,400 units).
The weekly sales ranking is published by Li Xiang based on data from insurance companies, but Tesla does not like this statistic very much. However, the numbers themselves do not raise doubts, although there is a question about the calculation method: for example, sequential hybrids are considered electric cars, since from the point of view of taxes in the PRC they are the same.
The fact that Tesla is losing the Chinese market is no longer a secret: the American brand has long given up competing with the automotive giant BYD in terms of total sales. However, the Model Y crossover still remains the absolute leader in the Chinese market in the ranking for 2024. In the first 12 months of last year, 480,000 units were sold in China, and now with the updated bestseller, sales are expected to increase.
The success of Wuling, which also overtook Tesla in the electric car segment, is not surprising, since the portfolio includes a whole range of very inexpensive models, and the brand's base city car costs only 33,000 yuan ($4,500). For comparison, the base BYD costs 70,000 yuan, Xpeng starts at 112,000 yuan, Tesla - from 236,000 yuan, LiXiang - from 250,000 yuan.