Tesla's China exports shrunk to 60 units in March amid strong local demand

Tesla exported just 60 cars produced at its Shanghai factory in March, a record low figure as the carmaker witnessed strong local demand that sucked up most of the output during the month, as per data from China Passenger Car Association (PCA). The EV maker shipped a total of 65,814 cars from its factory last month with the bulk of those - 65,754 units - going to the domestic market.

The total number of battery-powered vehicles produced and delivered locally by Tesla in China in March was the highest since December, despite a six-day plant production shutdown caused due to pandemic-related disruptions and supply-chain issues. However, April figures will be closely watched as the EV maker suspend production at its Shanghai plant since March 28 due to increasing Covid cases.

In China, the overall passenger vehicle sales dipped 10.9% year-on-year in March to 1.61 million units, the China PCA data revealed. The month-on-month sales rose 25.3% while the deliveries of new-energy vehicles in the country jumped 137.6% year-on-year to 445,000 units. "Despite the global lithium price hike and chip shortage, China’s local OEMs achieved a great performance with their strong capability and government coordination," said Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the trade body, Bloomberg reported.

He added that China’s share of the global autos market reached a record 36% in the first two months of the year. Other automakers in the country also benefitted from robust local demand of vehicles with BYD delivering 104,338 new-energy vehicles including EVs and plug-in hybrids.

However, China's legacy automakers are under growing pressure to churn out ever-larger volumes of electric vehicles because missing their new energy vehicle production targets could dent their profitability, analysts from Bloomberg Intelligence noted.