Tesla's Pre-Emptive News

Talk about stepping on your own news. Tesla put out an unusual statement on Tuesday, detailing the number of cars that 20 Wall Street analysts expect the electric vehicle maker will deliver annually through 2029. Tesla said it “does not endorse” any of the information, mind you, which raises the question why it bothered to publish the summary. We can guess why: Tesla doesn’t want anyone to be shocked by the magnitude of the sales decline it’s on track to report for the fourth quarter of 2025. If the company follows past practice, it will release the quarterly report on Friday.

The group of esteemed analysts thinks deliveries will fall 14.6% to 422,850 by the time the quarter wraps up tomorrow. That’s not that surprising. The September 30 expiration of a federal government tax credit for electric vehicle purchases was expected to dampen fourth quarter sales, after a year in which Tesla’s business had already been depressed by Elon Musk’s polarizing political activities. But as analyst Gary Black pointed out in a post on X, an earlier estimate compiled by Bloomberg showed an estimate of 445,000, which implied a decline of about 10%. Black interpreted the company’s missive as a sign the actual number will be closer to the 420,000 range than the Bloomberg-calculated estimate.