*Tesla Records Landmark Sales Despite Covid-19 Pandemic
By Hamilton Nwosa(Head, The New Diplomat’s Business and Data tracking desk)
Tesla, the innovative electric car brand, has recorded what industry watchers describe as its most outstanding period in China, with landmark record sales of the highest number of electric vehicles last month, notwithstanding the crippling effects of Covid-19. This high number sales is coming against the backdrop of a drastic plunge in overall market sales of non-electric cars in China, the world’s largest market.
However, experts have not been able to establish a correlation between the high sales of Tesla and covid-19. According to statistics pulled from the China’s CPCA, by The New Diplomat economic Intelligence desk, “Tesla sold 10,160 vehicles in China last month, despite the fact that total Chinese vehicle sales plummeted by 40.8 percent year on year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
Interestingly, according to the data sourced by The New Diplomat, there has been a progressive and incremental rise in the sales of Tesla. Statistics tracked from both Tesla’s data marketing and sales department and China’s CPCA, showed that between February and March there was a rapid increase in sales, recording a very significant incremental sales trend as follows: In February, there was increase by 2, 620 Tesla vehicle sales whil in March, there was progressive increase in sales by 3,900 of Tesla vehicles.
Reports say that Tesla’s China’s operational factory located in Shanghai Giga was shut down for weeks due to the Chinese government’s compulsory closure of industrial production facilities on account of Covid-19. The factory, however, resumed production mid -February. Notwithstanding this development, increase and surge in sales have been astronomical.
Additionally, to escalate sales in the world’s top vehicle brand in the market, Tesla has also increased home delivery services to fast-track marketing and sales mechanisms in China . Recall that Tesla is an American electric vehicle, drawing from clean energy to fuel its operations. It is solely an electric car, which signals a revolution in the automobile industry.
Elon Musk of Tesla had envisaged, just like Steve Jobs did with technology, a revolution, and a rapid change in the way the world sees and uses automobiles. His original vision was to build a revolutionary sports car “ as a catalyst to accelerate the day of electric cars.” However, Tesla ‘s strong appealing brand has given it an unusual expansion across many parts of the world, especially North America, China and Europe.
In early January this year, Tesla brought out its first Tesla cars to customers from its newly built Gigafactory in Shanghai, China, The previous year, the company had embarked on a massive ground-breaking ceremony to herald the production of Tesla vehicles and brands in the world’s largest market. Recently,Tesla recorded its “best ever first quarter performance” with a production of almost 103,000 vehicles. With those numbers, it delivered about 88,400 vehicles globally as sales.
