Tesla delivers record 139K of electric cars in Q3

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi, and Emily McCormick break down Tesla's delivery numbers, and Q3 auto sales.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: The US auto industry gaining a bit of momentum in the third quarter, showing signs of a bit of a rebound from the lows related to COVID-19 that we saw back in March. Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick has been checking those numbers, and she joins us now. Emily?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Good morning, Alexis. Well, I want to start off by highlighting Tesla's delivery figures for the third quarter, because those just crossed the tape in this morning's trading session. Now, we had Tesla reporting record third-quarter deliveries of 139,300 for a jump of 44% year-over-year. Now, this was well above consensus estimates for 129,950, according to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg.

Now, Tesla's previous all-time high was 112,000 deliveries in the final quarter of 2019. I also want to highlight here that in this fiscal third quarter, we had Tesla returning to producing more vehicles than it delivered following factory shutdowns related to COVID-19 earlier this year. We saw total production at 145,000 in the third quarter. Now, Tesla has targeted delivering some 500,000 vehicles in 2020 after delivering about 367,500 in 2019. Now, for the year to date, the company has delivered about 319,000.

Now, Tesla does not break out vehicles by region. It combines its Model 3 and its newer Model Y figures. And taken together, the Model 3 and Y deliveries right about 124,000 during the third quarter to comprise the bulk of these quarterly deliveries.

Now, I do you want to highlight that we are seeing a bit of a selloff in Tesla shares here, down just about 3%, off the lows of where they had been trading, down as much as about 6.7% at the lows of the session. A bit of a sell the news going on here. Also, of course, a down day in the markets overall.

And turning now to some of the other automakers that we've seen over the past 24 hours, also reporting sales and delivery figures here for the third quarter. We had Tesla's competitor in China reporting-- that's NIO-- reporting deliveries of 12,206 vehicles in the three months ending in September. That was a rise of 154% year-over-year, so well above consensus estimates. But again, also seeing those shares under pressure.

We also yesterday got results from General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, and Toyota. Each of these reporting year-over-year delivery-- sales, I should say-- declines of about 10%. That was still an improvement of the more than 30% sales declines we saw in the second quarter.

So again, a bit of a sign of recovery that we're seeing in the auto industry. Still under pressure here during the pandemic. But at least coming off those lows that we had in the spring. Alexis?

BRIAN SOZZI: Emily, did Tesla say anything about profits? Surprised to see that selloff this morning.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Absolutely. So taking a look at the release here, Tesla tends to be rather light on details when it comes to their overall quarterly figures until we get that overall quarterly report. The company did note that its net income and cash flow results will be announced along with the rest of its financial performance when it announces its third quarter earnings. So we're going to have to wait at least a couple more weeks to get those full results here.

But again, we did see Tesla, of course, eking out a gap profit for its fiscal second quarter. That had been something that consensus analysts were looking for. Going to be looking now to see if the company can turn these record deliveries into yet another profit. Brian and Alexis?

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Emily, thank you.