Tesla price cut fuels doubling of foreign EV sales in Japan

New registrations of imported electric vehicles in Japan more than doubled in 2021, an encouraging sign for the likes of Tesla Inc. in what has been a tough market for foreign EV-makers. Registrations for imported EVs totaled 8,610 last year, up from 3,238 in 2020, Japan Automobile Imported Association said Tuesday. EVs accounted for 3.3% of foreign car registrations in Japan, compared with 1.3% the previous year. 

Japan has been relatively slow to embrace EVs, partly due to a lack of charging stations, parking space and sufficient subsidies as the vehicles tend to be more expensive than gasoline cars. Hybrid cars are more popular in the country, where the EV penetration rate is about 1% of the vehicle market.

The landscape is shifting as EVs become more affordable. Tesla cut the price of the long-range version of its Model 3 by 24% nearly 5 million yen ($43,380) last year, driving up demand. 

Japan is also getting behind EVs as it aims to achieve carbon neutrality in three decades. In November, the government doubled EV subsidies, including for ultra-small “kei” EVs.

Registrations of imported gasoline hybrids rose to 37,530 units last year from 13,465 in 2020, the association said Tuesday.  

Tesla sold a record 70,847 China-made vehicles in Dec -CPCA

TESLA-CHINA/ (UPDATE 3, PIX):UPDATE 3-Tesla sold a record 70,847 China-made vehicles in Dec -CPCA

Reuters Business Jan 11, 2022, 15:54

(Adds analyst quote)

By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh

BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) - U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc sold 70,847 China-made vehicles in December, the highest monthly rate since it started manufacturing in Shanghai in 2019, data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed on Tuesday.

Tesla's December sales, which included 245 for export, were almost three times the amount achieved in the same month last year and 34% higher than November's sales.

It also brought Tesla's total sales of China-made cars for last year to 473,078, according to Reuters' calculations. This accounts for around half of 936,000 vehicles the U.S. automaker delivered globally last year.

Tesla's Shanghai factory, which started delivering vehicles at the end of 2019, makes electric Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport-utility vehicles for domestic and international markets, including Germany and Japan.

The automaker, which has been able to surmount supply chain woes experienced by rivals to post record quarterly deliveries, said during its third-quarter results in October that the Shanghai plant's potential annual output exceeded 450,000 vehicles.

Tu Le, Beijing-based managing director at Sino Auto Insights, said the December numbers showed that the Tesla brand in China remained strong and that it was also operationally "impressive" given that the Shanghai factory had the capacity to make around 42,000 vehicles a month on average.

"They were well over that number in December. And this is despite the chip and battery shortages that other EV makers dealt with.

China's EV market is dominated by domestic brands including BYD and Wuling - a local marque that is part of General Motors. Tesla is only the foreign brand in the top 10, according to Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility.

The CPCA also said Chinese EV maker Nio Inc delivered 10,489 cars last month, a year-on-year increase of 49.7%, while Xpeng Inc delivered 16,000 vehicles. Volkswagen AG said it sold more than 13,787 ID. series EVs in China in December, the fourth consecutive month in which the ID. family has delivered more than 10,000 units in China.

CPCA said passenger car sales in December in China totalled 2.14 million, down 7.7% from a year earlier.