Tesla's Hong Kong Sales Gutted by Tax Change
Without huge tax Incentives.... this turkey of a car is a cooked goose.
"Hong Kong is the fashionable China," he said. "It's not exactly painting a glowing picture for the future of Tesla in China."
By Tim Higgins and Charles Rollet Published July 09, 2017 Features Dow Jones Newswires
Tesla Inc.'s sales in Hong Kong plummeted after authorities slashed a tax break for electric vehicles on April 1, demonstrating how sensitive the company's performance can be to government incentive programs.
Official data from Hong Kong's Transportation Department, analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, show that no newly purchased Tesla Model S sedans or Model X sport-utility vehicles were registered in April in the Chinese territory, and only five privately owned electric vehicles were registered in May.
The collapse followed a surge just before the tax change, which had been announced in February, with new registrations of almost 3,700 Tesla vehicles in the first quarter -- including 2,939 in March alone -- compared with 1,506 vehicles in the entire second half of 2016.
The swing was significant for Tesla, which reported that its vehicle deliveries globally topped 25,000 in the first three months of the year, the auto maker's best sales quarter ever, but fell to just over 22,000 in the second quarter.
The more recent total put Tesla within its first-half target range but below analysts' expectations for the quarter, and fueled concerns among analysts and investors that demand for Tesla's current two models is weakening ahead of the launch of the Model 3, a $35,000 sedan that begins production this month.
The concerns helped push Tesla's share price down over
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