ARK Invest analyst, Sam Korus, tweeted an image of a graph from the PCA and company filings that show monthly shipments of electric vehicles in China. The graph spans from April to July, covering Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) local and export shipments. The graph also shows shipment records for Chinese electric vehicle companies NIO (NYSE: NIO), Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) and Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI).

The graph indicated that, in both May and June, TSLA’s priorities were heavily skewed towards local shipments in China. However, July showed a dramatic shift towards exporting electric vehicles made in China.

Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk responded to the graph on Twitter explaining that, “Tesla makes cars for export in first half of quarter & for local market in second half.”

Data earlier in the week showed that Tesla sold 32,968 China-made vehicles in July. Out of the 32,968 cars, 24,347 EVs were designated for export, while local sales of China-made vehicles fell 69% to 8,621.

ARK Invest CEO, Cathie Wood retweeted the image, adding “Tesla seems to understand that China would like local champions to dominate electric vehicles (EV) sales inside the country but is pleased that Tesla is exporting from China high-quality/high-end EVs, especially to Europeans whose standards for fit-finish-design are quite high.”

Musk also added in his response, “As publicly disclosed, we are operating under extreme supply chain limitations regarding certain ‘standard’ automotive chips.” Implying that, despite a worldwide shortage of chips, Tesla is consistently producing a high number of vehicles.

By Michael Elkins | [email protected]

Tesla makes cars for export in first half of quarter & for local market in second half.

As publicly disclosed, we are operating under extreme supply chain limitations regarding certain “standard” automotive chips.

Most problematic by far are Renesas & Bosch.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2021