Tesla inches near 2020 goal on quarterly sales record

Tesla Inc. delivered a record number of cars worldwide in the third quarter, smashing analysts’ estimates and maintaining i ts dominance in electric- vehicle sales — making a difficult year- end sales goal slightly more attainable.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based carmaker delivered 139,300 cars, eclipsing its prior alltime high 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 more than fivefold this year, closed down 7.38 per cent at US$415.09 in New York.

That was part of a broad sell- off 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 read-through here is that China was a source of strength.”

Tesla didn’t say whether it still expects to deliver at least 500,000 vehicles this year, which would be a 36 per cent gain over 2019.