Tesla Registrations Plunge 24% In California, Its Largest Market

After a week full of abysmal news for Tesla, which some have said is rapidly becoming the new Uber on the bad-to-worse news front, the weekend couldn’t come fast enough for Elon Musk who by now is begging for the simple company of “a little red wine, vintage record and some Ambien.”

A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien … and magic!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) company of

But before that can happen, there is even more bad news for the electric car company which today entered a bear market after hitting all time highs just 2 weeks ago: according to Reuters, Tesla registrations in California – by far the largest market of the luxury electric car maker – fell 24% in April from a year ago, based on IHS Markit data. The latest report showing a plateau for Tesla’s products comes amid both investor concerns that demand for Tesla’s luxury Model S sedan is waning ahead of the mass market Model 3 launch, the sales of its Model X actually declined…

… and follows a scathing Goldman report which effectively said that Tesla can kiss its aggressive growth forecasts goodbye.

The punchline: IHS reported April Tesla registrations fell to 2,177 from 2,867 in California. Nationally they dropped nearly 10 percent to 3,911 from 4,334.

Tesla declined to comment on California registration figures and reverted back to its Monday’s press release that second-quarter global deliveries rose 53 percent from a year earlier, to just over 12,000 Model S and just over 10,000 Model X, which incidentally also missed consensus expectations of 22,900 sales. Inexplicably, Musk blamed battery pack production problems for holding back vehicle output in the second quarter until early June, even though Tesla produced 2,000 more cars than it sold, and also completely forgot to inform investors of this material adverse development for more than two months, and also during its May earnings call.

Willing to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt, IHS analyst Stephanie Brinley said that “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. Still, she said, Tesla’s Model S, could be in need of a refresh.