Tesla Model 3 Long-Range Version Launched! 830km Range, Starting Price 26.95 Million CNY, Musk Announces Major FSD Update for September
August 12th, Tesla officially announced that the long-range version of Model 3 with rear-wheel drive is now available, with a range of 830km (CLTC), and a starting price of 26.95 million CNY, with delivery expected in September. As for purchasing benefits, orders placed before August 31st can enjoy 5-year interest-free loans, 8,000 CNY insurance subsidies, 8,000 CNY paint options, priority charging benefits, and free transfer services for smart assistant driving.
Currently, Tesla Model 3 has four available versions, namely the rear-wheel drive version priced at 23.55 million CNY, the long-range version with a starting price of 26.95 million CNY, the high-performance all-wheel drive version priced at 33.95 million CNY, and the high-performance all-wheel drive version with a starting price of 28.55 million CNY. According to the new car public catalog published by the Ministry of Commerce, the long-range version of Model 3 has an 78.4kWh lithium battery pack, while the rear-wheel drive version has a 60kWh iron-phosphate lithium battery pack.
Source: Tesla China official website
The Chinese electric vehicle market is becoming increasingly competitive, with Tesla Model 3 facing pressure from competitors such as Xiaomi SU7 and XPeng P7. Data from Zhidao shows that in July, Model 3 sold 9,851 vehicles in China, down 40.8% year-on-year; for the first seven months of the year, the cumulative sales volume was 102,000 vehicles, up 26.5% year-on-year.
In fact, since entering 2025, Tesla has been facing increasingly intense market competition. According to data from the China Automotive Technology Research Center, in July, the Shanghai factory of Tesla produced 67,000 vehicles, down 8.4% year-on-year and 5.2% month-on-month. Cumulatively, Tesla sold 432,000 vehicles in China in the first seven months of the year, down 13.6% year-on-year.
Industry analysts believe that the slowdown in product updates is one of the main reasons for Tesla's sales decline. Since this year, Tesla has been intensively adjusting its product lineup, with the long-range version of Model 3 and high-performance all-wheel drive version being launched recently, and the Model Y L set to be released later this fall. Industry insiders predict that the new car will have a price tag around 35 million CNY or become an important move for Tesla to boost sales in China.
In addition to product updates, smart assistant driving has become a key battleground in the competition among automakers. However, Tesla's FSD development in the Chinese market has been relatively slow. In March, Tesla launched a limited-time experience activity for FSD, but later suspended related promotions. Although Tesla sales staff revealed to reporters that FSD functionality is now being pushed out in China, as of now, there have been no official updates.
On August 11th, Elon Musk announced that Tesla plans to release a major software update for FSD in September. Musk emphasized that this update will bring "major improvements," particularly in handling rare road scenarios, and achieve significant performance enhancements. He also revealed that Tesla is developing an advanced FSD system for Robotaxi use in Austin, which is ahead of the consumer version by about six months.
In terms of technology roadmap, Tesla is committed to a pure visual approach. In April, Musk stated that the first truly based on pure artificial intelligence comprehensive autonomous driving scheme will be launched soon, relying solely on cameras, Tesla AI chips, and AI software. However, industry experts are cautious about this.
According to knowledgeable sources, while technology iterations have been rapid, early-stage convolutional neural networks (CNN) have developed into bird's-eye view (BEV) and eventually end-to-end large models, system performance indicators have improved from early closed scenarios' 100km to the present thousand-kilometer one-time. However, in essence, it still belongs to the auxiliary driving category, unable to fully cover all complex usage scenarios.
Regarding the ultimate form of autonomous driving technology, industry insiders have not yet reached a consensus. knowledgeable sources further analyzed that "theoretically, when the visual system reaches 99.9999% coverage and time delay compresses to within 50ms, multi-sensor schemes may lose their necessity. However, as of now, there is no definitive answer to whether it can meet this target, from an engineering practice perspective, the possibility of a 'visual dominance + multi- auxiliary' hybrid architecture in the future is still very high."
Source: Sina Finance
On Monday (August 11th), the US stock market closed, with Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock price rising nearly 3%, marking the fourth consecutive trading day of gains, closing at $339.03 per share, with a total value of $1.09 trillion.
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