Tesla’s sales numbers for December in China are in, and it shows another record month of deliveries and confirmed that almost half of Tesla’s record year of production and deliveries came from Gigafactory Shanghai.
The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) released its numbers early on Tuesday and showed that Tesla sold 70,847 China-made vehicles in December – a new record.
The vast majority were sold in China, and only 245 units were exported to other markets.
Gigafactory Shanghai has become Tesla’s exportation hub, and early in the quarter – in this case, October and November – the automaker produces vehicles for international markets, especially Europe and Asia, and focuses on producing vehicles for the Chinese market later in the quarter.
These new 70,847 units add up to now a total of 473,078 vehicles coming from China or sold in China for Tesla in 2021.
That’s roughly half of the 936,000 electric vehicles delivered by Tesla last year.
About 160,000 of those 473,000 vehicles were exported to markets outside of China.
It shows just how critical Gigafactory Shanghai and the Chinese market have become to the American automaker.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla had previously guided an annual output of 450,000 vehicles out of Gigafactory Shanghai in 2021.
It not only beat that, but if the rate achieved in December is maintained, which is not a guarantee with the supply chain issues, Tesla would have a production capacity of over 800,000 vehicles annually at the plant.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on Tesla’s output out of China in the next few months to see if this incredible capacity is maintained.
If it’s the case, Tesla is going to see a massive ramp-up in 2022 with this new capacity in Shanghai being combined with the Model Y ramp-ups at Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas.
Wall Street is currently expecting Tesla to deliver about 1.4 million vehicles in 2022, which is roughly a 50% increase year-over-year.
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