Tesla on Thursday upgraded every Model 3 it sells in China with a larger 16-inch touchscreen and turned on power export across its Model 3 and Model Y lineups there, changes the American Model 3 will not get.
The company announced the changes on Oct. 1 in a set of four marketing posters on its official Chinese channels, according to a report by Electrek, which tracks Tesla’s lineup closely.
The main hardware change is the center display, up from 15.4 inches on every current Chinese Model 3 trim. Tesla said the screen has a higher resolution and a higher refresh rate but gave no numbers for either. Buyers in China can also now order a light gray “premium interior” paired with a black fabric headliner, the same combination Tesla added to the 2026 Model Y Premium in the United States back in January.
Then there is the power export, known as vehicle-to-load. Every Model 3 and Model Y on sale in China can now push out up to 2,200 watts of AC power. Tesla’s example is a campsite running a 600-watt rice cooker, a 1-kilowatt hot pot and a 600-watt electric kettle at the same time. Owners need Tesla’s AC power-export adapter to use it, except in the three-row Model Y L, which does not.
The upgrades came bundled with a fresh round of discounts. Model 3 orders placed by Oct. 31 get 5,000 yuan, about $740, off the final payment. On top of that Tesla is offering five-year zero-interest financing, with 79,900 yuan down and payments from about 2,377 yuan a month, an 8,000 yuan insurance subsidy on the rear-wheel-drive and Long Range versions, an 8,000 yuan paint credit and a choice of three charging perks, according to Electrek.
After all that, Tesla advertises the Model 3 from 222,500 yuan, roughly $33,000. The list price never moved: the base rear-wheel-drive car still starts at 235,500 yuan, so the headline figure works only if a buyer counts both the final-payment discount and the insurance subsidy. Even discounted, the car costs well more than BYD’s new Formula S sedan, which starts at 189,900 yuan for the rear-wheel-drive version.
In the United States, the Model 3 starts at $36,990, and Tesla’s own specification page still lists a 15.4-inch center touchscreen.
The bigger gap is vehicle-to-load. When Tesla brought the feature to the United States in August, it limited it to the Model Y Premium, the Model Y Performance and the Cybertruck, at 2.4 kilowatts through an $80 adapter for the Gen 3 Mobile Connector. The entire American Model 3 lineup was left out. In China, every Model 3 gets it.