Tesla sold 381,088 cars to Chinese buyers through the first nine months of 2026, down 11.9% from last year, according to CPCA data. Over the same period, Giga Shanghai’s exports more than doubled to 361,972 vehicles.

Nearly half of what Tesla builds in China now leaves China. And Beijing just announced it will cut the tax rebate on EV exports next year.

Update: A day after this article was published, Tesla brought the 16-inch screen to every Model 3 in the US. Here’s what changed, and what the US Model 3 still doesn’t get.

Tesla China is upgrading every Model 3 it sells with a larger 16-inch touchscreen and a new light gray interior option, and it’s turning on up to 2.2 kW of AC power export across its entire Model 3 and Model Y lineup in the country.

The US Model 3 gets none of it. Tesla’s American Model 3 still has a 15.4-inch display, and it’s shut out of the vehicle-to-load feature Tesla launched stateside in August.

Tesla is putting its Cybercab on public display in China this week, but the company wants to be clear about one thing it isn’t: a vehicle it plans to sell there.

Tesla China said the showcase “does not involve” selling the Cybercab in the Chinese market or launching a driverless ride-hailing service — even as China’s own robotaxi operators run paid rides at scale.

Tesla’s sales inside China fell 19% in the first half of 2026 compared to its peak in 2023, dropping to the lowest level in years, according to new data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

At the same time, exports out of Giga Shanghai surged 127%. Tesla’s China plant is increasingly building cars to ship somewhere else.