Excerpt: The opening of an article from Ars Technica. Read the original for the full story.

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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).