On January 12th, Tesla China's official website showed that the starting price of the updated Model 3 had dropped to 245900 yuan, a reduction of 15500 yuan compared to the previous current car price of 261400 yuan; The starting price of Model Y has decreased to 258900 yuan, with a price reduction of 7500 yuan.
At the beginning of last year, Tesla also took the lead in launching a price war, which sparked a whole year of internal competition among car companies. At that time, Tesla's two domestic models had a significant price reduction, with the Model 3 rear wheel drive version being directly reduced by 36000 yuan, with a starting price of 229900 yuan; The Model Y Long Range Edition has been reduced by 48000 yuan. After the price adjustment, Tesla hit a historic low in new car prices.
In early September last year, the long-awaited Model 3 refresh was officially launched, but the starting price was not around 200000 yuan as expected by the industry, but at 259900 yuan. Compared to the old Model 3, the new entry-level version had a price increase of 28000 yuan, and with the current 8000 yuan insurance subsidy of the old model, the new entry-level version is actually 36000 yuan higher than the old model.
In addition, Tesla has repeatedly raised the prices of Model 3 and Model Y against the trend, but the price increase was not significant.
At the same time as Tesla's price increase, many domestic brands have already tried to compete from Tesla by lowering prices and increasing configurations, including the Zhiji LS6 and Jiyue 01, which were launched in October last year, with competition directly targeting the Model Y. These models have offered competitive prices, with the Zhiji LS6 starting at 214900 yuan and Jiyue 01 starting at 249900 yuan, both lower than the Model Y.
Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu and CEO of Jiyue, said in an interview with First Financial and other media, "From beginning to end, we wanted to fight against Tesla. We didn't want to ride on Tesla's popularity, but when we defined Jiyue 01 as a product in 2021, we comprehensively compared it to Tesla Model Y in terms of vehicle wheelbase, length, handling, endurance, acceleration, and other aspects."
From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, the Model 3 also faced numerous competitors. In the 200000 yuan pure electric sedan market, there were many models such as Huawei's Smart Selection S7, Xiaomi's first model SU7, Jike 007, Galaxy E8, and Star Journey Era ES that entered the market, and they generally had more advantages in cost-effectiveness or quality to price ratio. Among them, the starting price of Jike 007 is 209900 yuan; The Galaxy E8 starts at 175800 yuan for sale; Star Journey Star Era ES has a direct discount of 20000 yuan in the new year.
In such an "internal competition" Chinese market, although Tesla has already set the lowest price in the world, it still faces significant competitive pressure. Sun Shaojun, the founder of Car Fans, publicly stated that after several rounds of price increases and price reductions to force orders (prompting customers to pick up their cars), Tesla should have no reserve orders for the Model 3. In the first week of January, Tesla's new orders also halved to about 7000, which was clearly lower than expected, so the price reduction is only a matter of time.
The reporter noticed that the updated Tesla Model 3 already has existing cars. At the end of last year, Tesla also launched an insurance discount of 8000 yuan for existing cars, and at the beginning of this year, it was 6000 yuan.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Tesla China ranked second with a 7.8% share in 2023, with retail sales of 603664 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 37.3%. BYD ranked first with a 35% share, with retail sales of 2.706075 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 50.3%.
Li Xueyong, Deputy General Manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., General Manager of Chery Automobile Marketing Company, and General Manager of Jietu Automobile, told reporters that 2024 will be even more "bloody" than 2023, and the competition in the pure electric vehicle market will be very fierce in the future. "I believe that the growth of pure electric vehicles will significantly slow down, or even not increase, because pure electric vehicles did not grow from January to June last year, but gradually pulled up after June. The hybrid market has been growing by over 100% for three consecutive years, and this year the market penetration rate will exceed 20%."