Tesla tops Q3 delivery forecasts with two cars making up 98.5% of what it built

A Tesla shopper this summer had a short menu: a Model 3, a Model Y, or a Cybertruck that TechCrunch calls a commercial flop ^[15]. The Model S and X were discontinued earlier this year ^[7], and TechCrunch says the company has released no other new consumer model in years ^[15].

What buyers actually did shows up in the production split. Of the 464,391 vehicles Tesla built, 457,387 were a Model 3 or Model Y ^[5]. That is 98.5% ^[19]. Everything Tesla files as "other vehicles," the Cybertruck, Cybercab and Semi among them, came to 7,004, about 1.5% of output ^[21]. The Verge's delivery split is harder to use: its 481,166 Model 3 and Y plus 8,295 others adds to 489,461, or 2,929 more than the reported total ^[26][27].

Tesla's pitch is about other vehicles. It aims to build roughly 50,000 Semis a year ^[10]. Spread evenly, that comes to 12,500 a quarter, about 1.8 times the 7,004 non-3/Y vehicles of every kind Tesla built this quarter ^[25]. The Cybercab, a two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals, is giving driverless rides in Austin ^[11]. TechCrunch reports Tesla lined up as much as $30 billion in new credit for these projects ^[23]. Musk had predicted that half the US population would have access to Tesla robotaxis by the end of 2025, a forecast The Verge says "turned out to be very wrong" ^[13].

Measured against the company-compiled consensus of 461,974, the beat works out to 5.3% ^[2][17]. Some of those deliveries came from stock: Tesla delivered 22,141 more cars than it built in the quarter ^[20].

TechCrunch gives two reasons for the US slide. One is the lack of new models. The other is buyers who balked at Musk's support for Donald Trump's campaign and his role overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency ^[15][18]. Only the first is something a product team can fix. The Verge reported that Musk said the company was in for "a few rough quarters" because of the expiring incentive and other economic factors ^[22]. Tesla is reportedly expanding capacity at its German factory to meet European demand, according to TechCrunch ^[28]. Neither outlet reports deliveries by country, so the size of the overseas offset can't be calculated from these reports.

For a US operator planning around Tesla vehicles, say a fleet manager or a charging-site owner, two axes sort the lineup. One is whether the volume comes from a car shipping in quantity today or from a roadmap product. The other is whether demand in your own market is growing or being covered by sales elsewhere. A shipping car with growing local demand is safe to plan around. For a US operator, the Model 3 and Y fall in the shipping-but-covered box. They are dependable to buy, while the company's new capacity goes where the buyers are, in Germany by TechCrunch's account ^[28]. A roadmap product with real local demand justifies a pilot. The Semi and Cybercab sit in the roadmap column in every market until their volumes show up in a production report.

I'd treat the Model 3 and Y as dependable supply and the Semi and Cybercab as pilots. The cost of that caution is arriving late if the Semi does reach 50,000 a year ^[10].