Tesla Delivery Time is Longer on Some China Models After Rebate

(CTN News) – Longer waiting times for certain variants of the Model Y have been reported by Tesla (TSLA.O), indicating that price reductions announced on Friday may be boosting demand in the electric car manufacturer’s second-largest market.

According to Tesla’s website, the wait time for orders of the rear-wheel-drive and long-range Model Y models was one week longer on Monday than on Friday.

On those models, the wait time was two to five weeks as of Monday. As of Monday, the wait times for both Model 3 variants and the Model Y performance variant were still one to four weeks.

With reductions ranging from 6% to 13.5%, Tesla slashed prices on Friday. Analysts saw this move as a hint that a pricing war may be developing at a time when demand in China has slowed.

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, as of Monday, Tesla had not modified its January production schedule for its Shanghai facility, with the stoppage of the assembly lines set to begin on January 20 and last until the end of the month.

After a wave of spontaneous demonstrations, irate Chinese Tesla customers who purchased vehicles in late 2022 but missed out on the extra discount stated they were waiting for a response from the firm about their desire for some compensation.

A Tesla official said to Reuters on Saturday that the business has no plans to make up for the price reductions those customers missed. An inquiry for comment made to the business on Monday went unanswered.

Some Chinese consumers said they had been misled into thinking there wouldn’t be any more reductions. Many also wanted to benefit from a nationwide EV subsidy that ended at year’s end.

Online footage of the demonstrations in Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Xi’an indicated that the Chinese official media mostly chose not to cover them.

Reuters saw a demonstration at a Tesla plant in Shanghai.

The Tesla customers who complained have received mostly unfavorable comments on Chinese social media, with many claiming that they should have known the contract’s provisions.

On his Weibo social media account, a well-known legal blogger named “Wind Blows” said, “I feel guilty for them protesting after Tesla dropped the costs.”

Separately, Tesla started giving discounts to customers in Singapore on Monday who agreed to acquire used inventory, bringing the total number of markets where it has provided new incentives to eight.

Previously, it had only done so in China, South Korea, Japan, and Australia.

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1.3 Million Tesla Cars Delivered in 2022, Up 40% From Last Year