Tesla Inc’s total vehicle registrations almost halved in the U.S. state of California during the fourth quarter, according to a Dominion Cross-Sell report, which gathers data from state motor vehicle records.
The massive fall comes as tax credit for Tesla consumers ended in the last year. It had dropped to $3,750 at the beginning of the year and had halved to $1,875 in July.
An existing $7,500 U.S. tax credit for electric vehicles (EVs), which permits taxpayers to cut a part of the cost of purchasing an electric car, phases out during 15 months once an automaker hits 200,000 cumulative EV sales, which Tesla hit in July 2018.
The report released on Wednesday revealed registrations in California dropped 46.5% to 13,584 in the quarter ended December 2019, from 25,402 in the same period a year ago.
Model 3 registrations, which accounted for about three-fourths of the total, dropped to 10,694.
Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Reuters.
“One can assume that Tesla has hit peak performance in the U.S. as they have not exceeded their 2018 results for five months now,” stated Shane Marcum, vice-president of Cross-Sell.
The new data comes almost two weeks after Tesla beat Wall Street estimates for annual vehicle deliveries.
