(Yicai Global) June 26 -- Shanghai was the Chinese city that manufactured the most new energy vehicles in the first five months, outstripping Xi’an in northwestern Shaanxi province which is home to big production bases belonging to car giants BYD and Geely, thanks to strong sales of US EV startup Tesla’s Shanghai-made autos.

Shanghai churned out 504,500 NEVs in the five months ended May 31, while Shaanxi province produced 352,400 units, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But just last year, Xi’an logged an output of 1.02 million electric cars compared with Shanghai’s 990,000 autos.

Tesla vehicles have been selling well since the beginning of the year, an insider at the Xi’an Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology told Yicai Global. Price cuts among fossil fuel-powered vehicles have also affected NEV output and sales, he added.

Output at Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has surged from last year, and this has significantly boosted Shanghai’s automotive production volume, said Feng Lei, deputy head of Big Data platform HSMAP’s research institute.

From January to May, production of Tesla’s Model Ys and Model 3s soared 71.1 percent year on year, accounting for 75 percent of Shanghai’s NEV output at 381,900 units, Feng said.

While manufacturing at BYD’s Xi’an facility climbed 23.6 percent over the period to 311,000 units and that at Geely’s Xi’an plant more than doubled to 95,000 units.

But BYD’s cumulative sales nearly doubled over the period to around 1 million units. Xi'an is not the center of the Shenzhen-based company's growth, resulting in the city's poorer-than-expected performance, Feng said.

“BYD’s Xi’an base mainly produces the plug-in hybrid model Song Plus DM-i, but the models with the fastest sales growth, the Dolphin and Yuan Plus, are made in Changsha, Shenzhen and Changzhou,” Feng said. “It will be difficult for Xi’an to surpass Shanghai in terms of NEV output if it is only making BYD’s Song Plus DM-i,” he added.

But the situation could change in the second half as new models come on the market, an official at the automotive industry division of the Industry and Information Technology Department in Shaanxi province said.

Unit BYD Auto, which is based in Xi’an, is preparing to roll out its new budget mini EV the BYD Seagull and a subsidiary of Hangzhou-based Geely, called Baoji that is located in Shaanxi province, will soon launch its sports utility vehicle the Geely Galaxy. Both cars are expected to sell very well and already have many online orders.

BYD has also started production of its new luxury vehicle the YangWang U8, which costs around CNY1 million (USD138,500), and it is expected to hit the market in September, Shaanxi Daily reported.

Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Kim Taylor