Source: Tesla

Through the first week of April 2025, from March 31 to April 6, Tesla China delivered a total of 3,600 cars, including 2,500 Model Y and 1,100 Model 3.

That is a sharp drop from last week (W13), during which Tesla delivered over 20,000 vehicles for the first time in 2025, including a weekly-high 14,600 new Model Y.

The last time Tesla China delivered this many cars was during the first week of December 2025 with 21,900 EVs reaching hands of customers.

So why did Tesla struggle this much last week?

On March 29, former Tesla China store manager "胖虎 Shawn" made a post on Chinese social media Weibo that Shanghai Giga’s production line has been halted for the past 2 days and that production would start again on April 7.

That would suggest that Shanghai Giga froze production line through March 28 to April 7, 10 calendar days. However, Shawn did not disclose the reason.

Here’s what we know for sure: Chinese automakers were offline through April 4-6 due to the Qingming Festival, which honors ancestors.

It’s a day for people to visit graves, clean tombstones, and make offerings to loved ones that have passed away. The holiday is also a time to welcome spring, during which families go on outings, enjoy picnics, or fly kites.

Put it this way, even if the factory and delivery centers were up and running, few buyers would want to pick-up their new Tesla during that time.

Qingming effectively cut short the week to 4 days through which Tesla was able to deliver cars to consumers.

So does that explain everything? No.

Because just like Tesla, other Chinese automakers were similarly impacted by the Qingming Festival and yet, were able to do better.

For example, XPeng topped the weekly emerging NEV brand sales ranking with 7,500 vehicles sold . Li Auto, Leapmotor, Xiaomi, AITO, and Deepal were also able to deliver more with 6,200, 5,400, 5,100, 4,800, and 4,100 new energy vehicles.

In fact, Tesla’s 3,600 vehicles sold in W14 represent an 82.6% week-on-week decline, dropping to 10th amongst Chinese NEV emerging brands.

So what is happening with Tesla suddenly? Here’s one possibility: Tesla front-loaded backlog deliveries through the last week of March 2025, deliveries a total of 48,189 cars at the retail level, or 49,029 cars at the wholesale level.

Only 840 Tesla cars were exported out of Shanghai Giga. Exports in February were also virtually nil, with 26 units sold to global markets.

Front-loading means that Tesla pushed deliveries earlier than its planned schedule. As to why Tesla prematurely halted production lines ahead of Qingming Festival remains to be seen.

Source: Joe Tegtmeyer

Next week’s delivery figures will most certainly outpace Week 14 of 2025, but most importantly, will shed light on demand for Tesla cars amid this extended automotive price war in China.

We know that should Model Y “Juniper” sales disappoint, Tesla is readying a more affordable stripped-down Model Y coming later this year.