Sales of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan in China dropped more than 64% in April compared with the previous month, regardless of a recovery in the electric car market, according to data from China Passenger Car Assication (CPCA) released on Monday.
Tesla sold 3,635 Model 3 cars in April — dropping 10,160 in March, CPCA said.
That decline comes despite a 9.8% month-on-month increase in electric car sales in China in April. The CPCA reported that it is also observing a bounce back in demand after the outbreak of the coronavirus in the world’s second-largest economy, which effectively closed the country down for a number of weeks.
In an earnings call on April 29, CEO Elon Musk had said that the automaker was decreasing the price of the Model 3 in China.
“We are making rapid progress on decreasing the production cost in China, and we’re actually excited to announce on this call that we will be decreasing the price of the Standard Range Model 3 basically tomorrow China time,” Musk said at that time. “And that will be a price below the subsidy limit, and we feel confident that that will still be a vehicle that delivers good gross margin.”
China’s lockdown has affected automakers and factories in the country. Tesla had to temporarily close its Shanghai factory and stores earlier this year.
In its report, the CPCA did not mention any analysis to define what caused the drop in Model 3 sales.
For the first four months of this year, Tesla sold a total of 19,705 Model 3 cars, the CPCA added.
