Tesla delivered 11,580 cars in Q3; so can it meet its full-year goal?
Tesla reported on Friday that it had delivered 11,580 vehicles in the third quarter, meeting its target. The total, a preliminary number, rose 49% from a year earlier. However, Tesla now must accelerate deliveries to meet the low end of its full-year target of at least 50,000 vehicles. The nine-month total of 33,157 means the company needs to deliver at least 16,843 in the next﻿ three months to meet its goal.

Originally published on EV Obsession.

Tesla’s electric vehicle (EV) sales just seem to keep rising and rising…. With the release of official company sales figures for the third quarter of 2015, we now know that Tesla delivered 11,580 EVs during that period — representing a 49% increase over the same period of time in 2014.

In addition to that fact, it should probably also be noted the delivery figures for the third quarter of 2015 also represent the sixth straight quarter of growth for the highly scrutinized company.

Despite being essentially official figures, there may well end up being a small change to the numbers following a review of paperwork, probably considerably less than a 1% difference, though. “Tesla only counts a delivery if it is transferred to the end customer and all paperwork is correct.”

Despite the fact that the numbers are really quite notable, the recent press release revealing them did rightfully note: “Also, this is only one measure of our financial performance and should not be relied on as an indicator of our quarterly financial results, which depend on a variety of factors, including the cost of sales, foreign exchange movements, and mix of directly leased vehicles.”

Well, perhaps — but they can’t really blame us for trying to use the numbers as a marker of performance, can they? 🙂

Regardless of the numbers, though, things really do seem to be going quite well for the company. Following the very successful launch of the Model X, CEO Elon Musk said that even Model S sales have picked up notably since the launch. This is presumably due simply to greater exposure — the launch, after all, was widely covered by the mainstream media. Given the backlog for Model X deliveries (current pre-orders won’t be delivered until late 2016), I would guess that people see the X, want it, but don’t want to wait, so they get a Model S instead. Either way, though, Tesla execs are probably quite happy.

h/t Bob Wallace for the chart idea.

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