Tesla’s China troubles are deepening as its Shanghai factory posts a seventh straight month of declining production. April 2025 deliveries crashed 25.8% from March to 58,459 Model 3 and Model Y units, with a 10-day production halt during Qingming Festival making things worse. First-quarter deliveries tanked 22% year-over-year, while Chinese competitors are gaining ground with cheaper alternatives. The full story of Tesla’s Shanghai slump gets even more interesting.
Tesla’s Shanghai factory is hitting some serious speed bumps.
The electric vehicle maker’s April 2025 deliveries plummeted 25.8% compared to March, with just 58,459 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles reaching customers in China and export markets.
That’s a painful 6% drop from the same time last year, and it’s starting to look like a trend nobody at Tesla wants to talk about.
The numbers tell a brutal story.
First-quarter deliveries cratered to their lowest point in three years, down 22% year-over-year to 172,754 units.
February was particularly rough, with sales barely scraping 30,688 units – the worst showing since July 2022.
And those weekly registration numbers? They’re not pretty either.
Week 18 saw just 7,290 vehicles registered in China, a stomach-churning 29.2% decline.
The China EV market struggled overall during this period due to public holidays.
March provided a brief glimmer of hope with deliveries reaching 78,828 units.
Like other blue-chip stocks, Tesla’s market performance heavily influences investor sentiment.
Things got even messier when the Shanghai Gigafactory mysteriously went dark from March 28 to April 7, 2025.
Sure, there was the Qingming Festival in there, but a 10-day production halt?
A former Tesla China store manager spilled the beans on Weibo, and the company stayed suspiciously quiet about the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Chinese competitors are eating Tesla’s lunch.
Local manufacturers are rolling out cheaper, tech-loaded alternatives that are winning over customers.
Li Auto’s bold target of 700,000 car sales in 2025 shows just how confident these domestic players are getting.
The Model Y is still Tesla’s golden child in China, outperforming its Model 3 sibling by more than double in early April, but even that success story is under threat.
The Shanghai factory’s role as Tesla’s main export hub makes these production hiccups even more concerning.
When your primary manufacturing center keeps stumbling, those ripples spread far beyond China’s borders.
For a company that once seemed unstoppable in the world’s largest EV market, these seven straight months of declining production are starting to look less like a temporary setback and more like a serious problem that needs fixing – fast.
