Tesla beat every delivery forecast, with help from cars it had already built

Tesla

Tesla, one of our preferred stocks, delivered 486,532 vehicles in the September quarter. The analyst forecasts the company gathered averaged 461,974, and it beat every one of them. The shares closed 4.65% higher at US$370.59 on Friday.

Part of the beat came out of the car park. Tesla built 464,391 vehicles in the quarter, so it delivered 22,141 more than it made. That was the second quarter in a row of shrinking stock.

The comparison with last year is softer. Deliveries were about 2% below the 497,099 of a year earlier, when American buyers rushed to beat the end of the federal EV tax credit on 30 September 2025. They were up from 480,126 in the June quarter.

Chart: Tesla delivered more cars than it built for a second quarter running: 486,532 against 464,391. Vehicles Tesla built and delivered each quarter, in thousands, from October-December 2025 to July-September 2026. — This story’s chart of the day.

The Model 3 and Model Y made up 478,237 of the total. Everything else, including the Cybertruck and the Semi, came to 8,295, down 48% on a year ago.

The real test

production. Tesla can only sell from its car parks for so long, and I'd want to see output climbing back towards deliveries by the December quarter. Full results follow on 21 October.

This story ran in Good Bad News Saturday 3 October’s edition, with the market snapshot, the other two stories, the numbers and the week ahead. Read the whole edition →

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