Tesla offers record number of cars worldwide in third quarter

Tesla delivered an archive number of cars worldwide in the 3rd quarter, smashing analysts’ estimates and maintaining its dominance in electric-vehicle sales.

The Palo Alto, California-based carmaker delivered 139,300 cars, eclipsing its prior all-time most of 112,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019 and above the 129,950 projected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Shares of Tesla, which have rallied a lot more than 435 per cent this season, pared losses in early trading after announcing the sales data. The stock was down 3.9 per cent in premarket trading Friday to $430.28 by 8:33am in New York, part of a wide selloff of stocks after President Donald Trump disclosed a positive test for Covid-19.

“Overall, these are stellar numbers,” Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said in a phone interview early Friday. “The go through here's that China was a source of strength.”

Chief executive Elon Musk signalled to employees and investors a record quarter was at your fingertips within an internal email in late September.

The quarterly number is a barometer of worldwide EV (Electric Vehicle) demand as Tesla seeks to maintain its lead over startups and established automakers alike that intend to launch dozens of competing battery-powered vehicles in the next many years. Tesla’s global market share in EVs this past year was an industry-leading 16 %, according to a recently available report by McKinsey & Co.

Tesla didn’t say whether it still expects to provide at least 500,000 vehicles this season, which will be a 36 % gain over 2019. The business has handed over 318,350 cars to customers as of September 30. It will need a blowout fourth quarter of around 181,650 global deliveries to attain its target.

At the company’s ‘Battery Day’ event last month showcasing its technology, Mr Musk reaffirmed that 500,000 goal for 2020 by saying he expected “somewhere within 30 to 40 % growth” compared with this past year.

Tesla’s mass-market Model 3 made up the bulk of deliveries in the 3rd quarter, however the results included the Model Y crossover, which first started reaching US customers in mid-March. Mr Musk has predicted it'll be a big seller, potentially topping the combined level of all other vehicles in Tesla’s lineup.

Tesla assembles the Model S, X, 3 and Y at its US auto plant in Fremont, California. In addition, it manufactures the Model 3 at a factory in Shanghai. The business is building new plants at a niche site near Austin, Texas, and outside Berlin.