New Tesla Mannequin Y Gross sales Bump Already Over In China?!

Join CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and excessive degree summaries, join our day by day e-newsletter, and/or observe us on Google Information!

Final Up to date on: twenty fifth April 2025, 04:10 am

Tesla’s large hope to get again to gross sales development, or to a minimum of cease the immense bleeding, was that the brand new Tesla Mannequin Y can be an enormous hit and make up for the drop in gross sales up to now yr. Maybe the concept of fifty% development a yr is useless now (for Tesla, not for BYD), however may Tesla a minimum of return to some type of gross sales development on the again of the refreshed Mannequin Y?

I figured it might take a few quarters to get sense of this in relation to steady-state demand. I’d been listening to phrase that the refreshed Mannequin Y was already working out of steam in China, although! Is that true?

Effectively, Larry Evans has gone and introduced the receipts.

To begin with, right here’s a screenshot of the Tesla web site in China exhibiting a supply wait time of simply two to 4 weeks. In different phrases, Tesla has already labored by means of backlogs. This means that even in the course of the hottest time of auto demand, you don’t have to attend lengthy in any respect to have your automobile produced and delivered to you. With that being the case already, what is going to the story be in 3 months?

This second picture reveals weekly Tesla insurance coverage registrations in China, a proxy for car gross sales. As you’ll be able to see, after a notable rise, there’s an enormous drop-off, after which only a gradual rise from that decrease degree. Sure, quarterly logistics come into play a bit right here, however mix this with the two–4 week wait occasions for supply and issues already don’t look tremendous rosy in China.

Oh, yeah, and Larry provides, “And they’re already providing 0% financing for five years on the brand new mannequin, in addition to different incentives. The brand new automobile bump didn’t final lengthy.”

We already had a nasty signal about any potential Tesla gross sales rebound wanting on the Q1 report put out this week and seeing fairly excessive stock ranges. These further indicators are simply piling on.

There are potential methods all of this could possibly be deceptive. Maybe stock was excessive in Q1 as a result of plenty of automobiles had been nonetheless on the manufacturing facility or in transit, not sitting at Tesla shops ready to be purchased. Maybe wait occasions should not lengthy for a brand new Mannequin Y in China as a result of China’s large allocation for deliveries is within the subsequent 2–4 weeks, after which Mannequin Y automobiles will probably be shipped elsewhere for just a few weeks — and maybe that potential stock backlog can be shortening wait occasions. Maybe there was the massive drop-off in insurance coverage registrations as a result of the Chinese language market has been starved of the brand new Mannequin Y for the previous few weeks, and they’ll spike far above Week 13’s degree within the coming weeks when all of those new Tesla automobiles surge onto the market.

Perhaps…. Nevertheless, for now, taking all factors collectively, it looks as if expectations needs to be low. For the previous yr, there’s been rather more overly optimistic forecasting of Tesla gross sales than actuality delivered. And now Tesla is even warning about dropping demand in its quarterly report and convention name.