Tesla sold 93,579 units to Chinese buyers in July as China's car market fell 21%, while rival BYD failed to crack the top three sellers. TSLA holds over half the US EV market after GM and F retreated, though US EV sales dropped 20% when the federal tax credit ended. A 100% US tariff on Chinese EVs shields TSLA from cheaper rivals, while US oil at a 40-year low could push gas prices toward $5.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Investors, more and more likely to look at Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) car sales, should be encouraged by official EV figures out of China for the month of July.
According to the China Passenger Car Association, across the world's largest car market, sales of passenger cars fell 20.9% in July from the same month the year before to 1.46 million retail units. Sales of EVs and other cars that are not run entirely by fossil fuels dropped 3.9% to 951,000. Tesla's sales were extremely strong.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "In July, Tesla exported 66,330 units made at its Shanghai plant and sold 93,579 units to Chinese buyers." Keep in mind that in the second quarter, Tesla said it produced 450,000 vehicles and delivered over 480,000 vehicles. On top of China, Tesla sells hundreds of thousands of cars in the US, UK, and EU each quarter. Although the Chinese numbers cannot be used as an exact way to estimate third-quarter sales, investors should be optimistic.
On top of the good Tesla news, its primary global EV rival BYD had a horrible month. It did not sell enough units to be among the top three by units sold in China in July. Tesla's stock is down 26% this year, while the S&P 500 is up 12%.
To some extent, this is because of a tug-of-war between Elon Musk and a group of investors who believe his argument that Tesla will grow because of Robotaxis, AI, and robots is unlikely. Rather, they would like to see Tesla as the dominant EV company in the world, as it was a half a decade ago. It continues to trail some of the largest EV companies in China, which include Geely.
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