Tesla announces Model 3 Performance range increase in China

Tesla has announced a Model 3 Performance range increase for the version of the vehicle built in China.

When announcing the production of the Model 3 in China, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the automaker would only produce the lower-end versions of the car in the country and the higher-end would still be produced in Fremont, California.

However, this plan seems to have been abandoned following the global pandemic.

In April, when the Fremont factory was forced to shut down but Tesla’s new Gigafactory Shanghai was still operating, Tesla confirmed that it would produce a Performance version of the Model 3 in China.

Now the automaker is getting closer to production and it has received its official range test results.

Tesla announced the results on its official Weibo account in China yesterday (translated from Chinese via Google Translate):

“Today, we released the national standard operating range of Model 3 high-performance all-wheel drive version (made in China) on the official website. The cruising range test result is 635km.

Thanks to Tesla’s continuous product improvement, the Model 3 high-performance all-wheel-drive version (made in China) has achieved a certain cruising range while maintaining the same high level of performance.”

While 635 km (395 miles) may sound impressive, the number is based on the NEDC driving cycle, which has been discontinued almost everywhere and it is known for not being very accurate.

Nonetheless, the update is interesting considering that the US-made Model 3 Performance has previously received a range of 560 km (348 miles) in NEDC test results.

In the US, the official EPA rating, which is closer to real-world driving results, is 322 miles (518 km) of range.

It’s unclear which batteries the made-in-China Model 3 Performance is going to use.

Recently, Tesla has made battery supply deals in China with LG Chem and CATL. We even saw Tesla filing to produce a version of the Model 3 with LFP batteries earlier this year.