Connect with us

Investor's Corner

Tesla’s Q3 results and Wall St’s reaction: When record deliveries is bad news

Published

7 years ago

on

Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) third-quarter results set new production and vehicle delivery records for the electric car maker. With a total of 96,155 electric cars produced and about 97,000 delivered between July and September, as well as an update that revealed that the company achieved record net orders in Q3, Tesla’s results were objectively impressive.  

Yet, the market’s reaction to Tesla’s Q3 results was unforgiving. TSLA stock dipped over 4% in after-hours trading following the company’s release of its record third-quarter results. Bearish outlooks were shared by analysts covering the company once more, and questions about the demand for Tesla’s vehicles were rekindled. 

A key driver of this negative narrative was Tesla’s reported miss of Wall Street’s expectations, as analysts polled by FactSet had an average estimate of 99,000 deliveries for Q3 2019. It should be noted that this estimate did not represent the latest consensus numbers from the greater number of analysts covering the company prior to the release of the Q3 production and delivery results. 

FactSet usually utilizes about 10-12 analyst estimates to create a consensus, but over 20 analysts are covering Tesla. If one were to list the average estimates from 21 financial firms covering the electric car maker, one would see that Tesla’s “miss” might not really be a miss at all. In fact, it would appear that Tesla actually met Wall Street’s expectations. 

Among New Street, Baird, BAML, Nomura, CSFB, Macquarie, Bernstein, DB, Cowen, JPM, OpCo, CE, MS, UBS, Wolfe, JMP, Needham, ISI, RBC, Barclays, and Wedbush, the actual delivery estimates among analysts covering the company was 94,422 units, comprised of 76,831 Model 3 and 17,591 Model S and X. That’s more conservative compared to Tesla’s 97,000 deliveries, comprised of 79,600 Model 3 and 17,400 Model S and X. 

In a way, a good part of the bearish narrative that emerged following the release of the Q3 2019 results was due to a delivery target quoted in a leaked Elon Musk email that made the rounds just days before the end of the quarter. In the message, Musk rallied Tesla’s employees to push deliveries since the company has a chance of hitting 100,000 deliveries in Q3. That 100,000 delivery target was not official guidance from Tesla, but it seemed like it was practically considered as such by some analysts covering the electric car maker. 

Advertisement
-

With Tesla’s official delivery figures falling short of the 100,000 mark, it became pretty easy to frame the narrative as a disappointing quarter for deliveries. The numbers are anything but, especially considering that sales among veteran automakers in the United States experienced a difficult third quarter. 

Japanese carmakers Toyota and Honda, two of the US’ leading Asian automakers, suffered double-digit declines that were worse than analysts anticipated. Ford, the maker of America’s most popular vehicle, also saw its sales sink by 4.9% year-over-year. Compared to these, Tesla’s 16.2% year-over-year improvement in deliveries is quite impressive. 

In the aftermath of Tesla’s Q3 2019 results and the unfortunate reaction of the market, is Tesla completely blameless? Not completely. It is unfortunate, but executives such as Elon Musk must realize that at this point, Tesla is playing a game that is not exactly fair, as evidenced by the CEO’s informal delivery target seemingly being considered as guidance by some analysts. In this light, emails with lofty forecasts might prove unwise in the future, or stronger safeguards must at least be placed to ensure that no internal emails are leaked. 

As of writing, Tesla stock is trading -6.53% at $227.26 per share. 

Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.

Advertisement
-
Related Topics:

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla deliveries best Wall Street guesses alongside second-best energy quarter

Published

11 hours ago

on

October 2, 2026

By

Credit: Tesla Europe & Middle East | X

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported strong delivery figures that beat Wall Street guesses, and they were revealed alongside the company’s second-best quarter in terms of energy deployments ever.

Tesla announced this morning that it delivered 486,532 cars in Q3, while producing 464,391, exceeding analyst consensus, which sat around 462,000 units.

Meanwhile, Tesla reported 13.7 GWh of energy storage deployed for the quarter. That’s the second-best quarter Tesla has ever reported on that side of things.

Vehicle Deliveries

Deliveries were strong, and it was another quarter when Tesla had the opportunity to outshine the Wall Street pundits who are quick to criticize and slow to give credit. Tesla saw a slight decrease in deliveries compared to Q3 2025, but Tesla still had the $7,500 EV Tax Credit to use to help incentivize consumers to pick an EV.

A small decrease of 2.1 percent is pretty telling because it shows Tesla does not need massive federal credits to convince consumers to purchase its vehicles.

It was also the company’s third-best performance all-time in terms of deliveries, trailing that of Q3 2025 with 497,099 deliveries and Q4 2024, when the company handed over 495,570 cars.

We reported several days ago that Tesla Showrooms across the United States were completely bare of inventory or unclaimed units. Many locations also removed Demo Drive units, which had been bought by customers looking to take delivery sooner.

Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong

Energy Generation

Tesla’s Energy Generation performance in Q3 was also very strong, as the company deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage over the past three months. The only quarter when Tesla reported stronger energy deployment figures was Q4 2025, when 14.2 GWh of energy storage was deployed.

Tesla’s Q3 performance in energy generation has continued to grow each quarter, with the company increasing its deployments by ten-fold since Q3 2021, when just 1.3 GWh was deployed.

It is also nearly double what it was in Q3 2024, when the company reported 6.9 GWh. This is one of Tesla’s quickest-growing divisions, and it flies under the radar with fans and analysts, as many are focused on self-driving or the vehicles themselves.

Tesla Stock

Shares rose 5.07 percent to $372.06 at just after 10 a.m. on the East Coast. This is a rarity for Tesla after a strong delivery report, as positive news usually brings the stock down. Many quarters with extremely robust delivery reports have not been as kind to the Teslanaires of the world.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner

Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.

Published

3 days ago

on

September 29, 2026

By

Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.

A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.

Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.

SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center

 

Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.

The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.

Continue Reading

Investor's Corner

Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong

Published

3 days ago

on

September 29, 2026

By

Credit: @thaichiminh1907/X

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) showrooms have been picked clean ahead of the end of the third quarter of the year, as demand looks to be strong and delivery estimates for new vehicles are pushed into late 2026 and early 2027.

Tesla appears to have sold out of many of its Model 3 and Model Y trim levels in the United States, as only the Model Y RWD and Model Y All-Wheel-Drive are available for delivery before the end of the year.

Additionally, many showrooms are either completely empty or void of all but just one demo unit within the buildings themselves in an effort to bolster what could be one of Tesla’s best quarters in vehicle deliveries in recent memory.

Additionally, when I spoke to the guys at Tesla Mechanicsburg two weeks ago, when I returned the Model Y L, their third hauler of the week had just arrived, and every vehicle on it, along with every vehicle in their delivery lot, was accounted for and had a name attached to it for delivery.

Tesla saw a 25 percent increase in deliveries in Q2 compared to the same quarter the year before. The vast majority of the 480,126 units it delivered, 467,762 vehicles to be exact, were the Model 3 and Model Y.

In Q3 2025, Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles, once again a figure that was dominated by the company’s two mass-market vehicles. Analysts have unusually wide predictions for this quarter, likely because so many firms missed the Q2 delivery figure by such a substantial margin; Wall Street predicted 408,000 cars, while Tesla delivered 480,000.

Goldman Sachs has Tesla slotted for 435,000 deliveries in Q3, while JPMorgan said it anticipates 482,000. The median guess is about 449,000 deliveries for Q3.

Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.

Continue Reading