Tesla’s EV business is still going strong.
Elon Musk’s electric carmaker announced on Friday that it sold 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, down 2% year over year.
The figures came in well above Wall Street’s expectations. Tesla shares rose more than 2% in premarket trading on the news.
Analysts were expecting the company to deliver around 463,761 EVs, according to a consensus compiled by Bloomberg, while Tesla’s own compilation of analyst forecasts predicted 462,000 deliveries.
Tesla posted record sales in Q3 last year as buyers rushed to take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs, which expired in September 2025.
Since then, the US EV market has cratered. Sales of electric vehicle models in August were down 47% from 2025, per data from Cox Automotive, and a host of automakers have rolled back their EV plans and pulled electric models from the US market.
Tesla has ridden out the EV winter better than most. The Model Y maker has increased its share of the US market since the tax credit went away, and posted a mega sales beat in the second quarter.
The reward for that good news was Tesla’s worst stock price drop in a year, with investors increasingly showing more interest in the company’s robotics and autonomous vehicle endeavors.
Tesla began adding the Cybercab, a gold-clad robotaxi without pedals or a steering wheel, to its robotaxi fleet in September, and is gearing up to begin production of its Optimus humanoid robot before the end of the year.
The company’s robotaxi network remains limited to six cities in Texas and Florida, lagging rivals Waymo and well behind the ambitious targets set out by Musk at the end of last year.
The relatively slow progress has weighed on Tesla’s share price, which is down more than 20% since the start of the year. Investors have one eye on rumors of a potential merger with SpaceX, which has eclipsed Tesla’s market cap since its record-breaking public listing in June.
Musk and other SpaceX executives have hinted that a merger could be on the cards, with the billionaire teasing a potential combination when asked about the relationship between the two companies in a September interview.
“With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what what action one might take?” Musk said.
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