Number jumps 34% compared with July

US electric car maker Tesla Inc sold 44,264 vehicles in China in August, surpassing the 40,000 threshold for monthly sales for the first time in the country.

That number jumped 34 percent compared with July alone, and leaped 275 percent from the same period last year, the China Passenger Car Association said on Wednesday.

The first eight months of 2021 saw Tesla sell more than 250,000 automobiles in China, outstripping total sales volume last year.

The company, which makes Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport-utility vehicles in the Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, exported 31,379 units in August, up 29 percent from the previous month.

The company said the Shanghai plant is designed to manufacture over 450,000 cars per annum.

Passenger car sales in August in China totaled 1.45 million, down 14.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the association.