© Provided by The TelegraphElon Musk
Tesla shares slumped on Tuesday as fresh signs of trouble emerged for its operations in China, while Elon Musk polled Twitter followers on whether the carmaker should accept Dogecoin.
China's Passenger Car Association said Tesla sold 25,845 locally made vehicles in April - 27pc lower than March.
Reuters reported separately that the Model 3 maker decided against buying more land next to its Shanghai plant, as US-China trade tensions undercut plans to turn the site into an export hub.
Shares of Tesla, which recently warned investors the digital assets it has been buying could be subject to volatile prices and risk of losses, fell more than 4pc in pre-market trading on Tuesday after dropping more than 6pc on Monday.
While Mr Musk has been playing damage control during what has been a turbulent few months in China, he has also been preoccupied with Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency started years ago as a joke that has gained value partly due to his attention.
The token jumped about 8 cents to 54 cents after Mr Musk asked his almost 54m followers whether Tesla should accept it as payment along with Bitcoin.
Musk had more than 750,000 respondents in 30 minutes to his Twitter poll.
The fourth-largest cryptocurrency has been volatile since the Tesla chief appeared on Saturday Night Live last weekend and called it "a hustle" in one segment. Dogecoin's value has fallen from as high as $95bn to about $67bn.
Tesla's issues in China started in March when its cars EVs were prohibited from some military complexes and housing compounds because of concerns about sensitive data being collected by cameras and sensors.
Shortly after the ban became public, Mr Musk said the carmaker would never use technology in its vehicles for spying and would be closed down if it did.
Last month a highly public protest by a customer during the Shanghai motor show went viral, prompting deeper investigation by a local market regulator and heated criticism of Tesla's customer service.
The company initially played down the incident but quickly struck a more conciliatory tone after criticism mounted.
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