Photo/Shetuwang

May 29 (NBD) -- China-made Tesla Model 3 will be available for pre-order this Friday, electric vehicle upstart Tesla said in a Weibo post Tuesday. And a car price quiz has also been launched. 

Buoyed up by the news, Tesla-related concept stocks in the A-share market all perked up in the afternoon session of Tuesday. 

In a recent on-site visit, National Business Daily (NBD) found that Tesla's Shanghai factory is under intense construction. "We hope to put the factory into operation at the end of this year if everything goes all right," a person-in-charge with the carmaker told NBD.

According to an analyst, pre-subsidy prices of the Chinese-made Model 3 will likely be set between 300,000 yuan (43,485.8 U.S. dollars) and 350,000 yuan. "Pricing the locally produced car in the range will pressure China's proprietary upscale electric car brands to either enter the segment for vehicles priced at about 200,000 yuan or grab share from the Mercedes-Benz EQC and BMW iX3 with a price tag of over 400,000 yuan," the analyst remarked. 

An industry source added that the operation of the Shanghai factory and introduction of the homemade Model 3 will exert great impact on traditional auto manufacturers and emerging automotive startups. 

In face of the stiff competition from Tesla, automotive startups like Byton and Aiways Auto are speeding up vehicle development, expecting to bring their first mass-produced vehicles into market by the end of this year, in a bid to gain a head start ahead of the launch of the locally produced Tesla vehicle. 

Traditional new-energy vehicle (NEV) manufacturers are sparing no efforts to move upscale. But with the gradual phase-out of NEVs subsidies in China, proprietary NEV firms are losing the price superiority, and their only way to stand out in the competition is to improve the product appeal and brand strength. 

"At present, there is no model that is technologically on par with Tesla cars in the Chinese market," another auto industry analyst who declined to be named told NBD. According to the analyst, the competition in the NEV market will turn increasingly red-hot in the future.  

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn