Tesla sets new quarterly record with about 24,500 deliveries in Q3

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was clear that he wanted to see good delivery numbers from his team in the third quarter. And deliver they did. Tesla announced today that its third quarter delivery numbers were up over 70 percent from the second quarter: approximately 24,500 versus 14,402. Since Tesla says it only counts a vehicle as delivered when all the paperwork is done, there are another 5,500 or so that are "in transit" and will be counted in the fourth quarter figures. Tesla said it expects to deliver about as many vehicles in Q4 as it did in Q3, for a total of 50,000 in the second-half of 2016. Let's just say Tesla is happier now than it was in the first half of the year.

To compare to Tesla's delivers for the third quarter of 2015 – 11,580 – the percentage increase is even greater: 112 percent. We can play with the numbers another way, too, since the Model X was not really available a year ago. For the third quarter of 2016, Tesla delivered 15,800 Model S sedans, compared to 11,580 last year. That's a 36-percent increase.

Tesla had better sell more vehicles, because it's making more vehicles, and it needs to get ready for the massive push that is coming for the 375,000-ish orders for the Model 3. In Q3, Tesla built 25,185 vehicles, up 37 percent from last quarter's 18,345.

Tesla also included this note in a press release announcing the sales figures. Since we're not an investor site, we're not totally sure what it means, but we're reprinting it here for anyone who wants to read it (and perhaps help explain the change):

Finally, we note that starting in Q3, our quarterly financial releases will no longer include non-GAAP revenue and related financial metrics resulting from vehicles leased through our banking partners or that include resale value guarantees. We will, however, continue to provide additional supplemental information to investors to provide insights into our business.

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