Chinese electric-vehicle growth continued in December, with BYD taking the crown of largest global seller from Tesla for the second time. Growth alone, however, wasn’t enough to give all Chinese EV stocks a boost on Thursday.

Thus, to keep its crown as the world's top seller of electric cars, Tesla needs to deliver over 400,000 cars in the final quarter to keep ahead of BYD. The U.S. carmaker sold a record 1.81 million vehicles in 2023, and it is expected to reveal its fourth-quarter deliveries for 2024 later this week.

The Chinese automaker BYD, which makes fully electric and hybrid vehicles, just announced record sales for the year.