Tesla delivers 139,300 vehicles in Q3, beating expectations

Tesla delivered 139,300 vehicles in the third quarter, slightly above Wall Street's expectations and a notable improvement from last quarter, as well as the same period a year ago.

Tesla's numbers in the third quarter marked a 43% improvement from the same period last year, when the company reported it had delivered 97,000 electric vehicles. The third-quarter figures were 53% higher than last quarter when Tesla was still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included suspending production for weeks at its main U.S. factory.

A consensus of analysts from FactSet had expected Tesla to report it had delivered 137,000 vehicles.

Despite the rosy numbers, Tesla shares were down 2.6% Friday morning, a fall likely tied to drops across all of the exchanges caused by the announcement that President Donald Trump had tested positive for COVID-19.

American stocks drop in wake of president's COVID-19 diagnosis

The vast majority of deliveries - some 128,044 - were Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The remaining 16,992 were its more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles. Tesla doesn't provide breakdowns of each model separately, nor does it give information about regional deliveries.

Image Credits: Screenshot/Tesla

Tesla produced 145,036 electric vehicles in the third quarter, about a 75% improvement from the last quarter, as well as the same period last year. In both Q2 and the third quarter in 2019, Tesla produced about 96,000 vehicles.

Tesla says its battery innovations will deliver its goal of a $25,000 mass market electric car