Tesla Sold Just 8,817 Cars in China in October — Its Lowest Domestic Month Since July 2022

Tesla’s domestic business in China just hit a floor it has not touched in more than four years. Preliminary China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) data shows Tesla’s estimated domestic retail sales came to 8,817 vehicles in October 2026, the lowest since July 2022, according to Futu News and CnEVPost.

The arithmetic is stark. Tesla sold 67,829 China-made vehicles at wholesale in October, of which 59,012 left the country as exports — a record 87% of the factory’s wholesale total. The remaining 8,817 are the estimated domestic retail sales. That is down 66.1% from a year earlier and 86.4% from September, while exports jumped 66.3% year over year and 93.3% month over month.

Tesla itself does not break out a domestic China number, so the 8,817 figure is an estimate derived from the CPCA’s two published data points — wholesale and exports — rather than a company disclosure. Even so, the direction is unambiguous: Shanghai has become an export hub first and a domestic supplier second, as Chinese rivals take share at home.

Whether November repeats the pattern is the open question. The CPCA’s November data, due in early December, will show whether October was the floor or the start of a longer slide in Tesla’s biggest market outside the United States.