In the first three months of the year, Tesla (TSLA) reported deliveries of 336,681, a drop of 13% versus a year ago, missing estimates of 390,000 units. It was Tesla’s worst quarter for deliveries since the second quarter of 2022.
The concern for Tesla bulls is that sales continue to drop. April sales figures are coming in, and they are not looking good.
Tesla only reports sales or delivery totals on a quarterly basis and does not break out sales across its critical regions. In order to view performance on a monthly basis and across regions, registration data is often used as a proxy for sales, which is usually reported by national automobile authorities or research firms.
The first registration data sets to come through were in the UK and EU territories, and those sales drops turned out to be some of the worst.
UK Tesla registrations tallied only 512 new vehicles in April, per the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders auto trade group. That figure is down 62% from a year earlier.
Tesla’s UK underperformance follows weakness in other key regions. Germany’s KBA trade group reported registrations dropped 46% in the country to 885. The country is home to Tesla’s only European factory, Giga Berlin.
Tesla registrations also fell in key territories like France (down 59%), Denmark (down 67%), and Sweden (down 81%), per Bloomberg data polling national auto associations. The drops in April mirror tumbling European sales in March as well.
Demand weakness in the EU and recent protests at US Tesla showrooms follow CEO Elon Musk’s foray into politics, causing some Tesla owners to become alienated by Musk, his right-leaning tendencies, and outward support of President Trump.
A different set of issues affects China, a huge engine for Tesla sales in the recent past and a territory Tesla is counting on for future growth. Tesla saw more weakness there despite the fact that Chinese citizens are mad for electric vehicles.
Tesla China sold 58,459 vehicles in April, which includes EVs sold in China and those exported to other markets, down 6% versus a year ago, according to data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) as reported by China EV blog CnEVPost. That figure is down a whopping 25.8% sequentially compared to March.
Year to date, including April, Tesla’s China sales and exports are down 18.3%. This comes as Chinese domestic competitors like BYD (BYDDY), Nio (NIO), and XPeng (XPEV) eat into Tesla’s sales by offering cheaper products with competitive feature sets, including software that is deeply integrated into the car’s HMI (human-machine interface) that local customers demand.
