Tesla China's Weekly Insurance Registrations Points Towards Strong Q4 In Key Market

Tesla Inc. TSLA China sales are picking up momentum despite trailing behind Chinese EV maker BYD Co Ltd BYDDY.

What Happened: Insurance registrations for Tesla vehicles in China came in at 17,100 units for the week ended November 17, down 1.16% from 17,300 in the previous week, reported CnEVPost, citing data shared by Li Auto.

BYD, however, topped Tesla with 94,700 insurance registrations in the period, up 10.24 percent from 85,900 vehicles registered the week before. The Chinese EV maker, however, makes both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, unlike Tesla.

EV startup Li Auto is following Tesla close on heels with weekly registrations touching 12,300 last week. China's newest EV entrant, Xiaomi, also had 5,700 insurance registrations last week. Insurance registrations in China are considered a proxy for sales.

Analyst Take: Tesla Bull and The Future Fund Managing Partner Gary Black deems the latest insurance registration numbers as positive.

"After 7 weeks, TSLA China 4th quarter is +19.3% YoY and -0.2% QoQ. This was the highest 7th week of a quarter ever," Black wrote.

Why It Matters: Tesla has to deliver at least 514,926 EVs globally in the last quarter if it is to beat its 2023 delivery number of nearly 1.81 million. China is Tesla's second-largest market after the U.S., making deliveries in the region key to realizing Tesla’s annual delivery goal.

However, 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.

Price Action: Tesla’s stock is down 0.33% in premarket trading on Tuesday. Year-to-date, the Tesla stock has gained 36.4%, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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