During a rough week for electric-vehicle makers in the U.S., Tesla investors got at least one piece of good news on Thursday. The EV maker reported a pronounced increase in sales—better numbers than Wall Street had predicted, and a respite from the lagging deliveries Tesla has been reporting over the past two quarters.
While analysts had expected Tesla to sell around 450,000 EVs over the three months ended in September, Tesla ended up delivering more than 497,000—about 100,000 more than the previous quarter, and a 7.5% increase from this time last year. Dan Ives, one of Tesla’s most notorious bulls, blasted out an analyst note that same morning, describing the numbers as a “massive bounce back” for Tesla—a turnaround for a company that has been battered over the first half of this year in several key markets as CEO Elon Musk tried his hand at a brief yet chaotic stint in American politics.
