It’s a big day for Tesla in China, as two major developments have finally given Tesla the green light to officially begin selling their made-in-China Model 3’s, with government incentives.
Today, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially added the Tesla Model 3 to its list of “Catalog of car models recommended for the promotion and use of new energy vehicles in China”, according to a report from Tesmanian.
With the incentive, buyers of the Model 3 will receive a subsidy of around ¥24,750 (~$4,600 CDN), bringing the price of the Standard Range Plus with Autopilot from ¥355,800 ¥331,050, or about $62,000 CAD. This incentive will give Tesla a competitive advantage over other electric vehicles in the Chinese market that do not qualify.
But perhaps the bigger news of the day for Tesla was that they were also officially approved and given a permit to begin selling and delivering their Model 3’s to customers who have already placed orders.
There are already hundreds of Model 3’s sitting in the parking lots around the Gigafactory Shanghai, so the deliveries could start very soon for some lucky Chinese customers.
The electric vehicle market in China is a huge one, with over 1 million sold in 2018. Tesla hopes to be able to take a big chunk of those sales, and has the capacity to do so now that the Gigactory 3 is complete. Current production estimates hint at an output of about 100 vehicles per 8 hour day, which equates to around 2,100 per week now that they have been given the green light to sell.
If Tesla is able to begin delivering before the end of the year, and they should, it will give a nice bump to their Q4 2019 numbers. But the bigger bump will come in Q1 2020, as production and deliveries ramp up in China.
