Registrations of Tesla Inc vehicles in California, by far the largest market of the luxury electric carmaker, fell 24 percent in April from the same period last year, according to data from IHS Markit.
Tesla on Friday said in a statement that it is extremely misleading to look at registration data from one month, that deliveries varied month-to-month for operational reasons and that deliveries increased by more than 53 percent in the second quarter compared with last year.
“Looking at the quarter in total is the smallest time frame in which to obtain reliable, meaningful information about our deliveries. Deliveries naturally fluctuate from month to month for a variety of normal operational reasons,” it said.
“In the first month of the quarter, Tesla builds cars primarily for overseas markets, in the second month for North American markets [not including the west coast] and in the third month for the west coast,” Tesla said.
Focusing on April registrations “cherry-picks” data, it added.
Tesla earlier this week reported first-half global deliveries of its Model S and its Model X sport-utility vehicle at the low end of its own forecast, driving down the stock and raising questions about demand for the older models.
The findings come as investors worry that demand for Tesla’s luxury Model S sedan is waning ahead of the mass-market Model 3 launch.
Overall sales of electric vehicles in the US remain stuck at less than 1 percent of total vehicle sales, despite a growing number of models fielded by Tesla and other carmakers.
Tesla earlier this week said that battery pack production problems held back vehicle output in the second quarter until early last month.
A single month of data could not fully explain Tesla demand, IHS analyst Stephanie Brinley said.
“If Tesla had an issue with its production for the month, that could explain” the drop in registrations, she said, noting in particular the problems with battery pack output.
Industry data showed that Model S registrations in California were uneven over the first four months of this year, varying by more than 1,000 units month-to-month.
In percentage terms, Model S growth in California peaked in February, decelerated in March and turned negative in April.
Brinley said it was difficult to assess whether that reflected demand or availability.
Tesla reported that first-half global deliveries rose to 47,100 this year. The company had predicted between 47,000 and 50,000.
IHS in April reported that Tesla registrations fell to 2,177 from 2,867 in California, while nationally they dropped nearly 10 percent to 3,911 from 4,334.
For the first four months, California registrations rose to 6,926 from 5,804 and US registrations rose to 15,288 from 10,937.
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