Tesla’s China sales crash 66% to lowest level in over four years

Only 8,817 of the cars Tesla delivered from Giga Shanghai in October went to Chinese buyers. That’s down 66% from a year ago and Tesla’s worst month in China since July 2022, according to CPCA data. Back in July 2022, the Shanghai factory was partly shut down for line upgrades. This time it ran normally and shipped 87% of what it built out of the country. 67,829 cars built, 8,817 sold in China The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) reported that Tesla China wholesaled 67,829 vehicles in October, up 10.3% year-over-year. That’s the number most headlines ran with. But 59,012 of those were exports. Strip them out and you’re left with 8,817 cars for the domestic market, the one Giga Shanghai was originally built to serve. Nearly all of them were Model Ys (7,807), according to CnEVPost, leaving just 1,010 Model 3s. And compared to September, when Tesla sold 64,837 cars in China, domestic sales fell 86%. Here’s how October has looked over the last three years: Tesla China, October202420252026Retail (domestic)40,48526,0068,817Exports27,79535,49159,012Wholesale (total)68,28061,49767,829Exports as share of wholesale41%58%87% The “first month of the quarter” explanation Tesla favors export orders early in each quarter and pushes domestic deliveries toward the end of it, and September’s promotions and quarter-end rush pulled some demand forward. That’s real. Tesla’s China sales have followed this sawtooth pattern for years. Last October was also weak, and Tesla then delivered 73,145 cars in China in November and 93,843 in December. But it doesn’t explain the size of this drop. Here’s every first month of a quarter in 2026: January: 18,485 April: 25,956 July: 27,249 October: 8,817 October is less than half of the previous low this year. And the October trough keeps getting deeper: 40,485 in 2024, 26,006 in 2025, 8,817 now. The market isn’t down 66% China’s EV market is having a rough year. NEV retail sales fell 10% year-over-year in October to 1.148 million units, according to CPCA’s preliminary data, as Beijing phases out trade-in subsidies and the NEV purchase tax exemption was cut in half on January 1. The overall passenger car market was down 25%. Tesla was down 66%. That works out to about 0.8% of China’s NEV retail market last month. Meanwhile, Xiaomi, which only started delivering cars in 2024, delivered more than 50,000 vehicles in October. Leapmotor delivered 106,127, up 51%. BYD delivered 490,168, though that includes its exports. Giga Shanghai now exports more than it sells in China Through October, Tesla has sold 389,905 cars in China. That’s down 15% from 458,710 over the same period last year and its lowest January-to-October total in at least four years: Tesla China retail, Jan-OctUnitsChange YoY2023462,355n/a2024500,688+8.3%2025458,710-8.4%2026389,905-15.0% The decline is speeding up. Tesla was down 11.9% in China through September, and one bad October pushed that to 15%. This year is now 22% below the 2024 peak, or about 110,000 fewer cars. Exports from Giga Shanghai went the other way, up 101% to 420,984. So this year, Shanghai has now shipped more cars abroad than it sold at home. Last year, domestic sales beat exports by more than two to one. As we reported last month, Beijing is cutting the VAT export rebate on EVs from 13% to 9% on April 1, 2027, with the rate set by the customs declaration date. We said to expect automakers to cram exports in ahead of the deadline. October’s 59,012 exports, up 66% year-over-year, fit that. Electrek’s Take We’ve been tracking this gap all year, from Tesla’s Q1 China retail crash to the first-half numbers. Every time, the wholesale headline looks fine and the domestic number underneath gets worse. October is the most extreme version yet: Tesla China “grew” 10% while Chinese buyers bought 66% fewer Teslas. We don’t buy that this is just the quarterly cycle. The cycle explains why October is weaker than September. It doesn’t explain why this October is a third of last October, or less than half of any other month this year. Two things can be true at once. The export numbers show Tesla front-loading shipments ahead of the rebate cut. And Chinese demand for a Model 3 and Model Y lineup that hasn’t fundamentally changed in years keeps fading while Xiaomi, Leapmotor and BYD launch new models every few months. And if Tesla is choosing to send cars abroad instead of selling them in China, that’s not exactly a vote of confidence in its Chinese business either. The real test is November and December. Last year, Tesla bounced back to 73,000 and 94,000 domestic sales. If it gets close to that again, October was mostly timing. If it doesn’t, Tesla has a serious problem in the world’s largest EV market, and the export valve that’s been hiding it gets more expensive in April. 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