Image: Tesla
Tesla has quietly upgraded the long-range versions of both the Model 3 and the Model Y electric cars in China, adding more range and performance to both models to kick things off in the second half of 2025.
On the Model 3 Long-Range AWD model, Tesla is now offering 753 km of range, up from 713 km on the CLTC cycle. That’s an increase of over 5.4%, hinting at a possible change in the battery pack.
Not only has the range been improved, but the acceleration has also improved, helping the Model 3 shave 0.6 seconds from its 0-100 km/h sprint time, which now comes in at 3.8 seconds.
On the company’s Weibo page, it shared: “Model 3 long-range all-wheel drive version is upgraded🚗 Longer range, CLTC range increased to 753 kilometers🛣️🦾 More powerful, 0-100km/h acceleration upgraded to 3.8 seconds⬆️”.
This upgrade also comes with a price increase equivalent to around $A2,200 over the previous pricing.
That’s still cheaper than the Acceleration Boost option, which is available to the Long Range owners who wanted to shave a bit of time on acceleration. That option in Australia is priced from $3,000 but doesn’t add any upgrades to the range.
Like the Model 3, the Model Y also sees a boost in range, increasing by 4.4% to 750 km on the CLTC cycle. That’s up from 719 km, allowing drivers to travel further than they have ever done so in a Model Y Long Range.
Another key upgrade is the acceleration time, which has been shaved from 4.8 seconds to just 4.3 seconds, making it an even more enjoyable drive for many.
On Weibo Tesla said: “Model Y long-range all-wheel drive version🚗 Range is further improved🛣️🦾 750km ultra-long range makes long-distance travel a piece of cake.”
This is quite an interesting move from Tesla and comes only days after Xiaomi’s YU7 SUV launch in the Chinese market which saw almost 300,000 firm orders in the first hour of it going on sale.
The real difference here is that the Model Y is available for delivery within weeks while Xiaomi could take up to a year to deliver to its climbing order holders.
Another key point worth mentioning is that this comes only days before various other mid-sized SUVs are about to launch.
This includes the highly anticipated Xpeng G7, Li Auto i8 and Nio’s Onvo L90. All three of them will be competing for the mid-size SUV family EV customer in China.
The latest move could help Tesla get a head start over the other models but with the market only getting more competitive in the second half of 2025, the company may need to release its affordable models sooner rather than later.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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Also in China, has anyone else been seeing more noise about BYD cooking the books?
Falun Gong is all over it. The CCP gets their regular serve also. It's industrial trolling and Epoch Times is more than happy to help out.
The shakeout of the Chinese NEV industry is causing much pain to all downstream creditors. It's a painfully needed rationalisation.
They aren't technically cooking the books. Instead, they are pushing debt onto suppliers. They are doing by this by delaying payments to suppliers out to over 200 days. This is more than twice as many days as the industry average.
The current amount owed to suppliers is thought to be more than 40 billion US dollars, which is a lot of money.
What they are doing is legal, but there are questions over whether BYD will be able to make their future repayments to suppliers if sales stagnate, which is showing some signs of happening.
While there are legitimate concerns about BYD's capacity to make the repayments, as David Pearn points out in his reply to your post, the current alarmist online content about BYD's financial state is mostly being driven by rabid anti-CCP groups such as Falun Gong.
Shifting the deck chairs on the titanic.
Did they simply unlock a few kWhs. How many midnight hours would that have demanded ?. How the Roadster going ?. When will the HW updates be delivered to those patient owners wanting their expensive FSD to do the job ?.
So whatever happened to the Model Q? Deathly silence, just more of the same.
It is rumoured that this week's shutdown and upgrade of production lines at Tesla's Austin factory is the final preparation for start of production of the new, lower-priced vehicle model. So an announcement of the new model is thought to be imminent.
There is no news about when production of the new model might start at Tesla's Chinese and Berlin factories. Both factories appear to have been operating at less than 80% of historical maximum capacity over the past few months. So that might be due to Tesla shutting down an existing production line and converting it to Model Q production, but it might also be due to a slow ramp in producing the new Model Y at those factories.
Picturing lots of septuagenarian Chinese doing O-100 all day for enjoyment.