Tesla shares drop 8% as worries about the company mount.

Tesla Motors Inc.'s stock on Tuesday dipped to its lowest level since November on the heels of lower sales in Europe, pushing the electric-vehicle maker's valuation below $1 trillion for the first time in three months.

"Today's drop is a reflection of the weak European sales," CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson told MarketWatch. "[Chief Executive Elon Musk's] growing involvement in politics has been a concern, but it is difficult to draw conclusions based on one month's worth of data, and we still think that favorable regulatory developments related to autonomous driving have the potential to act as a tailwind in the coming months."

Earlier Tuesday, German trade group VDA reported that Tesla's new-vehicle registrations fell 60% in January, the biggest percentage drop among carmakers that have sold at least 1,000 cars in the country.

That came as a French trade group reported a 63% drop in Tesla sales in that country in January. In the U.K., Tesla sales fell a more modest 8%, but against a market where battery-electric vehicle sales are up 42% year over year, according to the U.K.'s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The stock fell 8.4% to $302.80, its lowest level since Nov. 7, when it closed at $296.91. The stock also marked its biggest one-day percentage decline since Dec. 18, when it fell 8.3%.

As for the valuation, the last time Tesla's closing market capitalization was below $1 trillion was on Nov. 14, when it closed at $998.91 billion.

Tesla's stock has struggled to trade above $400 since late January, and on Monday it failed to sustain momentum after news that the EV maker was making progress in its full-self-driving offerings in China.

Even that may have started to sound like a Johnny-come-lately story, because earlier in February China's BYD Inc. (CN:002594) (BYDDY) unveiled its God's Eye advanced driver-assistance systems, with variations available for its lower-priced as well as its luxury EVs, and free of charge.

That seems to have left Tesla's stock open for testing fresh lows, even though Wall Street has kept the faith so far, with no major investment banks changing their view on the stock and imposing lower ratings or even tweaking price targets.

Investors have worried that Musk is devoting too much of his time to running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, hurting his and Tesla's image in the process.

Protests against DOGE were staged near Tesla showrooms in several cities recently, and once-quaint bumper stickers on Tesla vehicles announcing to the world that the owners bought their EVs before Musk's politics veered sharply to the right are now a common sight.

The bull thesis, however, has remained the same: Tesla has several catalysts on the horizon, namely at least one new mass-market vehicle scheduled to launch in the first half of the year, and also has major opportunity around newer products such as its Optimus humanoid robot and "unsupervised," or no human interaction, FSD launches in the U.S. this year.