Data released Thursday by the China Passenger Car Association showed that Tesla’s (TSLA) China-made electric vehicle sales in April surged 36% year-on-year, marking the sixth consecutive month of sales growth. The Model 3 and Model Y vehicles produced at its Shanghai plant, including those exported to Europe and other markets, reached total deliveries of 79,478 units. The data indicates that after a period of losing market share, Tesla is showing signs of stabilizing in its two most important markets outside the United States. However, regulatory approval delays for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, along with the continuous emergence of new electric vehicle models from local Chinese brands, may to some extent limit its subsequent recovery momentum.
Last month, Tesla’s sales also continued to recover in several European markets, including Sweden, France, and Denmark, largely driven by a surge in oil prices resulting from the conflict, which stimulated strong demand for battery electric vehicles. Nevertheless, Tesla faces tangible regulatory obstacles. The approval pathway for the FSD system, highly valued by customers (especially in China), remains unclear. Company CFO Vaibhav Taneja stated in April that full FSD approval in China is expected in the third quarter, a delay from the initially targeted first quarter. Meanwhile, emails from some European regulatory bodies indicate the EU holds a skeptical stance toward this technology. Prior to this recovery, Tesla had experienced a difficult period, losing nearly half of its European market share in 2025. Despite this, Tesla is intensifying efforts to counter the impact of new Chinese models, including by developing a more affordable compact SUV to be produced in China.
Led by founder Elon Musk, Tesla is now attempting a major transformation of its profit model. Although vehicle sales have actually declined somewhat over the past few years, the company’s market capitalization remains well above $1 trillion, reflecting investor confidence in Tesla’s new future vision. This vision relies almost entirely on a just-emerging, $10 trillion global opportunity: the robotaxi market. Looking back at its development history, Tesla was founded in 2003 and successively launched luxury models such as the Roadster, Model S, and Model X, but their mass-market appeal was limited. It was not until the delivery of the more affordable Model 3 in 2017 and the Model Y in 2020 that these two high-value models came to account for over 90% of its vehicle sales. The key point is that Tesla has spent more than two decades achieving mass production of affordable vehicles—a capability that is now laying the foundation for seizing the robotaxi market opportunity. Currently, Tesla has launched pilot robotaxi services for the public in several cities. Its greatest advantage lies in its ability to internally produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles to build a global fleet, in stark contrast to Uber and Waymo, which must outsource production to third parties. With decades of accumulated production infrastructure, Tesla is poised to scale this service globally over the next decade.
