Tesla steps up production to meet growing demand
Tesla plans to produce an average of 20,000 vehicles at its Shanghai factory in February and March. This is according to an internal planning memo available to the news agency Reuters. That would bring the production roughly back to the level of September 2022, when the factory turned out 82,088 Model 3 and Model Y.
This comes after the manufacturer had to cut production by about a third in November and extended the Lunar New Year holiday for its workers in January in order to deal with increased inventory. At the beginning of January, Tesla had cut prices for its Model 3 and Model Y massively, first in China and a week later in the US and Europe, to spur demand.
In China, prices were cut between 6 and 14 per cent, meaning the Model 3 now starts at 229,900 yuan (just under 31,900 euros) – less than at its launch in January 2021. The new base price for the Model Y in China is now 259,900 yuan (36,000 euros). That is 29,000 yuan less than before. In Europe and the US, prices dropped to 9,100 euros, depending on the model.
A plan that apparently worked – according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the number of orders was roughly double that of production numbers in January. In China alone, daily retail sales were 36 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of last year.
Tesla delivered a good 1.3 million cars in 2022. According to Musk, deliveries could reach 2 million this year. Vehicles produced at Tesla’s Shanghai plant are either sold on the Chinese market or exported to Europe.
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