Tesla Q3 deliveries hit 486,532, beating forecasts as Europe fuels growth despite modest year‑over‑year dip

TSLA delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter and produced 464,391, the company said Friday, comfortably ahead of Wall Street forecasts. Tesla's own compilation of analyst estimates called for 461,974 deliveries, which the result beat by about 5.3%, while a Bloomberg consensus stood at 463,761. Deliveries were still down about 2% from the record 497,099 a year earlier, when U.S. buyers rushed to use the $7,500 federal EV tax credit before it expired at the end of September 2025.

Europe did much of the work. The Model Y became France's best-selling car of any kind, and exports from Tesla's Shanghai plant nearly doubled in July and August, offsetting weakness at home: Tesla's U.S. sales were down nearly 20% year over year before Friday's report, according to Cox Automotive data cited by TechCrunch. The quarterly total was roughly 6,000 vehicles above the second quarter. Investor Gary Black attributed part of the beat to higher global gasoline prices.

Energy storage was the soft spot. Tesla deployed 13.7 GWh of batteries in the quarter, below the roughly 15.9 GWh some analysts expected. Shares rose more than 2% in premarket trading and were up about 5% at $372.10 in late-morning trading, per SentiSense data, though the stock remains down more than 20% for the year.

What to watch: whether European demand holds into the fourth quarter, how the storage shortfall shows up in margins when Tesla reports full third-quarter results later this month, and the October 15 re-reveal of the second-generation Roadster.