SHANGHAI—Tesla buyers in China will be among the first consumers to feel the pinch from the U.S.-China trade dispute.
Price listings on Tesla’s Chinese website increased by nearly 20% this weekend. It came after the U.S. and China on Friday imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s goods, which affected U.S.-built cars exported to China including Teslas.
The Silicon Valley electric-car maker had briefly cut prices by about 6% after the Chinese government reduced its tariffs on imported cars to 15% from 25% on July 1.
But that cut proved short lived.
A basic Model S sedan now costs roughly $128,400, up from $107,300 last week, while a Model X sport-utility vehicle costs $140,100, compared with $117,100.
A Tesla dealer in Beijing said there were still some cars in stock with lower price tags that were delivered before the new tariffs were imposed, but that inventory was very low.
Tesla plans to build a plant in Shanghai to serve the local market, but for now it only produces vehicles in the U.S. Last year, it sold about 17,000 cars in China—its second-biggest market globally—generating more than $2 billion in revenue.
Tesla isn’t the only auto maker that builds in the U.S. and ships to China: BMW AG , Daimler AG and Ford Motor Co. all sell U.S. imports in significant volume here.
Last week, Ford said it has no current plans to raise retail prices on its China imports in response to the tariff hike. Ford sold roughly 65,000 imported Lincoln vehicles in China last year, as well as nearly 19,000 Fords. Locally produced cars comprised more than 90% of its sales.
Daimler said it didn’t plan to pass the entire cost of the tariff rise onto its customers.
Sales of high-end imports such as Tesla’s are unlikely to be hit severely by the price hike, according to analysts, since buyers of luxury cars tend not to be price-conscious.
—Chunying Zhang contributed to this article.
Write to Trefor Moss at Trefor.Moss@wsj.com
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