Tesla sold 486,532 electric vehicles during the third quarter of 2026. That’s a 2.1 percent decrease on the same quarter in 2025, when the company found homes for 497,099 EVs, and one might think that would be bad news for a company valued on the premise of near-constant growth.

But Tesla stock is up this morning; the year-over-year numbers might look bad, but the company still exceeded analysts’ expectations of 456,600 cars, which would have been a larger 8 percent year-on-year decline

Total production at Tesla actually increased year over year; it built 464,391 vehicles—a 3.7 percent increase—457,387 of which were Models 3 and Y (a 4.9 percent increase year over year). The remaining 7,004 were other models, mostly Cybertrucks, with presumably some Semis and Cybercabs, as the Models S and X are now retired; this category saw a 39.8 percent decrease year over year.

But the company couldn’t sell all the cars it made in Q3. It was able to sell 478,237 Models 3 and Y, a 0.6 percent decrease compared to Q3 2025. The decline in other models was severe, dropping by 48 percent to 8,295 units in total.

However, Tesla’s energy storage business had a much better three months. Between the beginning of July and the end of September, Tesla deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage products, a 9.6 percent year-over-year increase.

Tesla will publish its Q3 financial results on October 21.