Tesla’s recovery hits a speed bump

Tesla sold fewer vehicles in the third quarter than it did a year ago, when consumers rushed to cash in on expiring federal tax credits for electric vehicle purchases. As a result, the company’s third-quarter delivery and production report, released today, represents a speed bump on Tesla’s road to recovery. Tesla said that it produced a total of 464,391 vehicles between July and September of this year, including 457,387

Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, as well as 7,004 “other vehicles” like the Cybertruck, Cybercab, and Tesla Semi. (The company discontinued the Model S and X earlier this year.) That represents about a 3.8 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2025, when the company produced 447,450 vehicles. Tesla also said that it delivered to customers a total of 486,532 vehicles, including 481,166 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, as well as TK other vehicles — about a 2.1 percent decrease compared to the blockbuster third quarter of 2025, when it delivered 497,099 vehicles.

(For a direct-to-consumer company like Tesla, deliveries are a proxy for sales.) The drop in sales was widely expected thanks to the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles on September 30, 2025. Elon Musk himself said that the company was in for “a few rough quarters” thanks to the expiring incentive and other macroeconomic factors. But Musk also said he believes that Tesla will rebound as its AI plans come to fruition, including robotaxis and humanoid robots.

We saw how that might play out, with the July launch of the steering-wheel and pedal-less Cybercab in Austin. Even so, Musk predicted that 50 percent of the US population will have access to Tesla’s robotaxis by the end of 2025 — which of course turned out to be wrong. Last quarter, Tesla said its sales were up 25 percent year over year. Wall Street investors were expecting Tesla to report sales of 463,000 vehicles for the second quarter.

The company-compiled sell-side analyst consensus estimated 461,974 vehicle deliveries for Q3. The report comes amid a tumultuous time for Tesla — which always seems to be the case for any company with Elon Musk at the helm. The company scored some good headlines — the re-launch of the Semi and Cybercab, European sales rebound, a boost in EV market share stateside — and was rocked by a few bad ones — the delay of the next-gen Roadster reveal, a federal investigation into the Cybercab launch.

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