EV giant Tesla Inc.’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) car registrations dropped by a steep 64% in October as compared to the corresponding period last year, according to industry data.

What Happened: Tesla had just 971 new vehicle registrations in October as compared to 2,677 in October 2023,  the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. This is in spite of a 24.5% rise in overall battery electric vehicle registrations in the country through the month.

Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD Co Ltd, however, witnessed registrations rise from 183 in October last year to 780 units in the corresponding month of this year.

Overall vehicle registrations across fuel types, however, dropped 6% to 144,288 units.

The top-selling automaker in the UK in October was Volkswagen, who had over 13,000 registrations, seconded by BMW who had about 9400 registrations.

Why It Matters: For the full year 2023, Tesla delivered 1,808,581 vehicles around the globe. To mark a growth over last year, the company has to deliver at least 514,926 vehicles in the three months through the end of December.

Tesla has never managed to deliver over 500,000 EVs in a quarter to date, making this an ambitious target.

In the third quarter, Tesla reported deliveries of 462,890 vehicles, up 6.4% year-over-year and up 4.3% quarter-over-quarter.

Deliveries fell 8.5% year-on-year in the first quarter and by 4.8% in the second quarter.

According to Tesla researcher Troy Teslike, the low sales in Europe are likely to impact Tesla's aim to prevent a drop in yearly deliveries.

"Tesla is trying to reach 514,925 deliveries this quarter to avoid a drop in yearly totals compared to the 1,808,581 units delivered last year. However, even if they sell out all their inventory in the US, it’s still going to be tough to hit that number because sales in Europe are down too," Teslike said in a post on X in November.

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Photo courtesy: Tesla