While Tesla China remained focused on exports in January 2022, the Model Y managed to retain its position as one of the best-selling cars in the country. According to the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), Tesla sold a total of 16,496 Model Ys in China in January, making it the highest-selling luxury SUV in The country.
With this result, Model Y has also successfully controlled the gap between international and local competitors, with China's second-selling high-end SUV, the Ideal ONE, selling 12,426 units in the month, while other high-end SUVs sold much less, such as the NIO ES6 with sales of 5,525 units, and the BMW iX3, which sold only 1,914 units in January.
While Tesla China's strategy is to spend heavily on exports in the first half of each quarter, model Y's performance in China last month was still very impressive, and it completed the first stop of 2022 as the best-selling high-end SUV in the country.
According to the data of the China Passenger Car Association, the wholesale volume of Tesla in China reached 59,845 units in January 2022 (an increase of 286.5% year-on-year), of which 40,499 units were exported abroad and 19,346 were sold domestically. Considering that the Model Y already accounts for 16,496 domestic sales, the electric SUV still seems to have considerable appeal in the domestic automotive market.
Although Tesla China's development speed is already very fast, Tesla still plans to further expand its production in the next few years. Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn outlined this on his fourth-quarter and fiscal 2021 earnings call, when he said that the Fremont plant in the U.S. and the Shanghai plant in China alone could achieve the company's goal of achieving a 50% year-over-year increase.