Tesla launches revamped Model Y in China in bid to regain market share from Nio, Li Auto

Tesla China has priced its six-seat Model Y variant about 30 per cent higher than its basic edition and has started accepting orders from customers who prefer spacious, long-range electric vehicles (EVs) for family use.

The US carmaker announced on Tuesday that the upgraded version of the Model Y would sport a price tag of 339,000 yuan (US$47,182), compared with 263,500 yuan for the entry-level edition currently.

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The three-row SUV with a driving range of 751km is 25,500 yuan, or 8 per cent, more expensive than the existing long-range edition, which has a range of 750km.

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"The new cars are displayed in all of our showrooms now," Tesla said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that deliveries of the Model Y L would start next month.

The vehicle, fitted with LG Energy Solution's high-performance battery, represents the most substantial update of its Chinese-made models to date.

The Model Y L is nearly 5 metres long with a wheelbase of 3.04 metres, slightly longer than the standard version, according to details published by the Ministry of Industry and Infor­mation Technology.

Last week, Tesla started presales of its longer-range Model 3 sedan on the mainland in a bid to attract wealthy consumers, particularly families with more than one child.

The new Model 3, which has a range of 830km, is priced at 269,500 yuan, 14 per cent higher than the basic edition, which has a range of 634km.

"Tesla has to keep up with its Chinese rivals because they constantly launch new models to cater to middle-income consumers amid their changing taste for electric cars," said Eric Han, a senior manager at Suolei, an ­advisory firm in Shanghai. "Competition in the premium segment is getting fiercer since Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Nio are also building bigger and higher-performance EVs."

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, which started operations at the end of 2019, assembles only Model 3 and Model Y vehicles at present.

Its six-seat Model Y L faces competition from Li Auto's Li i8 and Nio's Onvo L90.

Beijing-based Li Auto, Tesla's nearest rival on the mainland, unveiled the Li i8 last month, pricing the base model at 321,800 yuan.

Shanghai-based Nio started deliveries of its six-seat Onvo L90 SUV on August 1, which is priced from 279,900 yuan.

Deliveries by Tesla's Shanghai factory dropped last month as the US EV maker failed to sustain the sales growth recorded in June.

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The Gigafactory handed 67,886 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to customers on the mainland and overseas in July, a decline of 8.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). Deliveries fell 5.2 per cent from June.

The sales drop came a month after the Shanghai plant reversed an eight-month decline.

For the first seven months of 2025, Tesla's largest production base worldwide produced 432,360 units, a decline of 13.7 per cent from a year earlier.

On the mainland, EV sales jumped 35 per cent to 7.6 ­million units in the first seven months, according to the CPCA.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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