Tesla beats delivery forecasts, but remains below last year

Tesla handed over 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, about 5% above the analyst consensus Tesla had compiled, and more than in the previous quarter. Deliveries are the company’s closest public measure of car sales, so the result suggests demand and the company’s ability to move cars were stronger than investors expected. Still, deliveries were 2.1% below the record set a year earlier, when U.S. buyers rushed to use a federal electric-vehicle tax credit before it expired. The quarter therefore looks like a better-than-feared performance, not yet a return to year-over-year growth—and it says little on its own about Tesla’s revenue or profit.