Tesla sales in China sank 70 percent last month from a year ago, the country's passenger car association said on Tuesday, underscoring how the trade war is hurting the California-based electric carmaker.
An official from the China Passenger Car Association said data showed Tesla sold just 211 cars in the world's largest auto market in October.
The electric carmaker, which imports all the cars it sells in China, said in October that tariff hikes on auto imports were hammering its sales there. In July, Beijing raised tariffs on imports of U.S. autos to 40 percent amid a worsening trade standoff with the United States.
While so-called new-energy vehicle sales have continued to climb in China, wider auto sales have slowed sharply since the middle of the year, taking the market to the brink of its first annual sales contraction in almost three decades.
Tesla, led by billionaire chief executive officer Elon Musk, said last week it was cutting the price of its Model X and Model S cars in China in a shift in strategy to make the cars "more affordable" and absorb more of the hit from higher tariffs.
Tesla recently secured a site for its first overseas factory in Shanghai that will help it avoid the steep tariffs.
Tesla did not respond to request for comment on Tuesday.
