Tesla raises mainland China price of Model Y’s basic version by just US$294, remains cautious about sales in world’s largest EV market

Entry-level Model Y assembled at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai now dearer by 2,000 yuan, to cost 261,900 yuan

Small rise compared to price increases in the US means Tesla ‘is still striving to bolster deliveries’ in China, analyst says

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A Tesla showroom in Beijing. The US carmaker is the runaway leader in China’s premium EV segment. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00pm, 10 Feb 2023

US electric-vehicle (EV) maker Tesla raised the mainland China price of the Model Y’s basic edition by 2,000 yuan (US$294) on Friday, far less than the amount by which it recently raised prices in the United States.

The increase, which follows two rounds of huge across-the-board price cuts in late October and early January, was announced by the carmaker on its China website. An entry-level Model Y assembled at the Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai will now cost 261,900 yuan, compared with 259,900 yuan previously. The prices of other Shanghai-made Model 3 and Model Y versions stay unchanged.

“A price hike shows that Tesla is confident about its China sales,” said Eric Han, a senior manager at Suolei, an advisory firm in Shanghai. “But the small rise compared to a price increase of US$1,000 to US$1,500 in the US means that Tesla is still striving to bolster deliveries in the world’s largest EV market.”

Last week, Tesla increased the price of its US-made Model Y long-range edition by US$1,500 to US$54,990, and increased the price of the high-performance version by US$1,000 to US$57,990.

Tesla China would not comment on its price adjustment, when approached by the Post. In January, Grace Tao, Tesla’s head of communications and government affairs in China, said on microblogging site Weibo that the carmaker adjusts prices of its locally built vehicles in China frequently, based on production costs.

Tesla is the runaway leader in China’s premium EV segment. It handed over 439,770 vehicles to mainland buyers in 2022, up 37.1 per cent year on year.