Tesla is juicing its China sales

If you haven't heard, Chinese EVs are amazing and they're taking over the world. And as someone who was just in the market for an EV this spring in Hong Kong, I can assure you that Chinese EVs are excellent: better features, nicer interiors, better ride, charge MUCH faster, much less expensive and no expensive subscriptions or software "activation" fees.

Then why is Tesla still selling so many cars in China? The answer is two words: FREE MONEY!

When I was shopping for a car in Hong Kong, all of the Chinese EVs dealers required that I book a test drive days in advance. The Tesla showroom, in contrast, let me do a walk in test drive because they weren't busy. They also offered me something none of the Chinese EV dealers did: 7 year financing at 0.99% interest per year. This made the Tesla which had a higher sticker price, actually less expensive because HKD (which is pegged to the USD) loses value at much faster than 0.99% a year.

And they've got an even better deal in mainland China. 5 year interest-free financing. I asked a friend who recently bought a new car in the mainland and he told me that Tesla was the only one using their own capital to offer customer financing. Chinese EV brands didn't offer their own financing instead directing customers who wanted to borrow money to buy a car to commercial banks.

I'm not an auto market analyst and I'm just speculating here, but it sounds a lot like Tesla's China financing is letting them book a lot more sales than they otherwise would if customers had to get their own financing and pay for it. Let's see how long the sales last!