Automobiles

Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter of 2026, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 471,262 units, with deliveries up 1.3% sequentially but down 2.1% year over year. Through the first nine months of 2026, Tesla delivered 1,324,681 vehicles and needs just more than 311,448 units in the fourth quarter to break its streak of annual declines. The competitive picture remains concerning, as BYD sold 762,478 passenger battery-electric vehicles in the quarter, up roughly 31% year over year, while NIO delivered 109,178 vehicles, up 25.4% year over year. In the last reported quarter, automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits slipped to 16.3%, and energy storage margins fell to 20.4% from 39.5%, while Tesla expects capital spending above $25 billion in 2026. Tesla's robotaxi network had covered roughly 380,000 driverless miles, compared with Waymo's more than 220 million rider-only miles, and the company recently moved its Roadster demonstration from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15. Tesla's Oct. 21 earnings report is much-awaited, and TSLA stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Toyota Motor North America sold 633,223 vehicles in the third quarter, up 0.6% from a year earlier on both a volume and daily selling rate basis. Electrified vehicle sales climbed 28.5% year over year to 363,367 units, accounting for 57.4% of total quarterly sales. In September, the unit sold 201,306 vehicles, an 8.4% volume increase and 4% gain on a DSR basis, with electrified sales of 117,215 units up 37.8% by volume and 32.2% by DSR, or 58.2% of the month's total. The Toyota division posted September sales of 171,469 vehicles, up 7.9% by volume and 3.6% by DSR, and third-quarter sales of 540,167 vehicles, up 0.5% on both measures. The Lexus division sold 29,837 vehicles in September, up 11.4% by volume and 6.9% by DSR, and 93,056 vehicles in the quarter, up 1.6% on both measures. Toyota and Lexus together offer 32 electrified models at U.S. dealerships.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that Tesla cut the memory specifications on its next-generation Optimus robot chips to scale production, after Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said humanoid robots could require hundreds of gigabytes of memory and storage each. In a post on X, Musk said Tesla cut the AI5 chip's memory in half to 72GB and the AI6 chip's memory by a third to 144GB, calling it the only way to get enough volume for Optimus production and saying it greatly reduces cost. He added that the cuts should have a negligible effect on Optimus performance, as memory bandwidth is a bigger limiting factor than total memory capacity. On Micron's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Mehrotra said humanoid robots are expected to need more than 200 gigabytes of memory and multiple terabytes of storage per unit, similar to autonomous vehicles, and that physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade. Tesla has reportedly placed its first large-scale component order for roughly 5,000 Optimus units and is auditing Chinese suppliers ahead of production, with the company aiming to eventually build 1 million Optimus units a year.

Honda and Taisei announced on the 5th that they have developed the foundational technology for a magnetic-field-coupling wireless power supply road system that delivers power contactlessly to electric vehicles while they are driving. Three companies took part in the development: Honda R&D, Honda's research and development subsidiary, and Taisei together with its subsidiary Taisei Rotec, which handles road and paving work. The system supplies power from transmission equipment buried in the road to receiving devices on the vehicle side, and is designed to handle up to the typical maximum speed of expressways. With an eye toward large commercial vehicles, the companies aim first for practical application in the logistics and transport sectors, where adoption benefits are expected, and plan to conduct demonstration tests on expressways from fiscal 2027 onward. Honda began work on the technology in 2021, and the three-company joint research started in 2025. East Nippon Expressway plans to begin demonstrations of in-motion power supply over roughly 300 meters on the main line near the Kimitsu parking area of the Tateyama Expressway from fiscal 2027 onward, with teams from Honda R&D and Taisei as well as teams from Toyota, Denso, and Obayashi taking part.

Niu Technologies delivered 537,457 units in the third quarter of 2026, a 15.4% increase from 465,873 units in the prior-year period. The quarter lifted year-to-date sales volume to 1.23M units, up from 1.02M units in the first nine months of 2025 across its lineup of e-motorcycles, e-mopeds, e-bicycles, e-bikes, and kick-scooters. Domestic sales in China expanded 9% year-over-year to 490.41K units in the third quarter compared to 451.46K units in 3Q 2025, bringing year-to-date domestic volume to 1.14M units, with the N, M, and F series remaining top sellers across the region. International markets were the standout growth driver, with unit sales surging over 226% year-over-year to 47.05K units from 14.42K units in 3Q 2025, bringing year-to-date international volume to 93.22K units. The company also said its NIU AIOS platform received the Red Dot Award for its AI features and user experience, and it plans to continue embedding these connected technologies across future product lines.

Renault Group will invest more than €10 billion, or $11 billion, in France over the next five years, CEO François Provost said on Saturday, with the automaker focusing on electric vehicles and more affordable cars. Speaking in an interview on France Inter radio, Provost said Renault had invested €13 billion in France over the last five years to transform its industrial footprint around electric vehicles, and that the coming five years would bring more than €10 billion of re-investment if the social and political context allows it. He said Renault's French plants now produce more vehicles than before, with 500,000 cars built in France in 2025, and that output will rise at least 25% in 2026 thanks to the rise of electric vehicles. Electric cars reached a record 42% of new car registrations in France in September, with demand boosted by the spike in fuel prices since the start of the Iran war.

Francois Provost, chief executive of French automaker Renault, said on the 3rd that the company will invest more than 10 billion euros in France over the next five years in electric vehicles and more affordable cars. In an interview with radio station France Inter, Provost explained that over the past five years Renault invested 13 billion euros in France and completely transformed its production setup to focus on EVs, adding that if social and political conditions allow, it will again invest more than 10 billion euros to continue promoting EVs and working to bring vehicle prices down. In France, EVs reached a record 42 percent of new car registrations in September, with demand boosted by soaring fuel prices since the start of the Iran war. According to Provost, Renault will produce 500,000 vehicles in the country in 2025 and will raise output by at least 25 percent in 2026 thanks to EV expansion.

Tesla's third-quarter deliveries beat company-compiled analyst expectations by 5.3%, though they declined 2.1% from a year earlier, a drop partly cushioned by Q3 2025's tax credit boost. Seeking Alpha analyst Oliver Rodzianko said the biggest takeaway is that traditional EV demand remains resilient as Tesla pivots toward autonomous taxi services and humanoid robotics as its dominant operating models, while energy storage deployment numbers missed expectations. Rodzianko noted that Chinese rival BYD saw its battery-electric passenger-car sales rise 30.9% year-over-year in the third quarter, underscoring fierce competition in China. Analyst Alexander Grover argued the delivery number is a distraction, since Tesla's valuation assumes unsupervised self-driving at scale, and flagged that Alphabet's Waymo is running more than 500,000 paid driverless rides a week across 15 U.S. metros with LiDAR in its stack, while Tesla still does not disclose how many of its robotaxis run without a safety monitor.

Tesla reported global vehicle deliveries of 486,532 units in the third quarter, down from 497,099 units in the same period a year earlier but still above the average analyst estimate of 463,761 units, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla shares closed Friday, October 2, up 4.65% after the company said in a statement the same day that the delivery figures reflected the strength of its core business amid a challenging electric vehicle market. The better-than-expected deliveries are a positive for Tesla after the company faced declining vehicle sales in recent periods, while its share price has remained weak. The company faces intense competition in China, a key market, as well as sluggish demand in the United States. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, is steering the company toward future businesses including artificial intelligence, driverless cars and humanoid robots. Last year's third-quarter deliveries set a record of 497,099 units as customers rushed to buy vehicles before the U.S. federal electric vehicle incentives expired, causing this year's third-quarter deliveries to fall year on year. Still, Wall Street expects Tesla to post a slight increase in sales this year after two consecutive years of declines.

Tesla reported third-quarter 2026 vehicle deliveries of 486,532, roughly 5.5% above the FactSet analyst consensus estimate of 461,000, sending shares up 5.2% in the afternoon session. The total comprised 478,237 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and 8,295 other models, though it marked a 2.1% decline from the 497,099 vehicles delivered in the third quarter of 2025. Tesla manufactured 464,391 vehicles during the quarter and deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage products. After the initial pop, the stock cooled to $371.21, up 4.7% from the previous close, and remains 15.3% lower since the start of the year and 24.2% below its 52-week high of $489.88 from December 2025.

Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, easily surpassing expectations of roughly 461,000 vehicles. While deliveries still slipped 2% from the record 497,099 vehicles delivered a year ago, the sizable beat was encouraging amid lingering concerns over global EV demand. Tesla produced 464,391 vehicles during Q3, meaning deliveries exceeded production by more than 22,000 units, with Model 3 and Model Y vehicles accounting for 478,237 deliveries. Attention now turns to Tesla's full Q3 results, scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 21, after the market closes, with the Zacks Consensus projecting Q3 revenue of $27.61 billion, a roughly 2% year-over-year decline, and earnings of $0.45 per share versus EPS of $0.50 in the prior-year quarter. Tesla stock remains down more than 15% year-to-date and carries a forward P/E multiple of 200X at around $370 a share, the highest in the Mag 7, and lands a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Tesla shares rose 5% after the electric vehicle maker reported third-quarter deliveries of 486,532 vehicles, above the 461,100 units expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Broadcom rose more than 3% after Reuters reported it agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion to finance infrastructure purchases, with investment banks seeking to raise $42 billion of Class A senior secured debt and $18 billion in Class B debt, according to Bloomberg. Nike fell almost 6% after its fiscal first-quarter revenue missed analyst expectations, with a 4% slide in sales tied to declines in China and plans to lay off staff in 2027. Synaptics surged 14% and ON Semiconductor rose more than 5% after ON Semi revised its buyout offer for Synaptics to $123 a share, or $5.7 billion. Seagate and Western Digital each tumbled 13% following a Nikkei report that Japan's Toshiba will double its hard disk drive production capacity for data centers and invest $380 million to expand facilities in the Philippines.

Tesla, the major US electric vehicle maker, announced on the 2nd that its global deliveries for the third quarter, covering July through September, came to 486,532 units, beating market expectations. Recovering demand in Europe offset the impact of the expiration of tax incentives in the United States and intensifying competition in China. The average analyst forecast compiled by Visible Alpha was 456,896 units. Analysts raised their 2026 delivery estimate to 1.82 million units, up from the consensus forecast of 1.65 million as of June. However, to avoid a third consecutive year of year-on-year declines in deliveries, the company needs to deliver at least 311,448 units in the fourth quarter. New vehicle registrations in the European Union rose by about two-thirds through August, and in France the Model Y was the best-selling vehicle across all models. Vehicle production in the third quarter was 464,391 units, below the forecast of 486,761 units.

Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, topping Wall Street estimates of 463,000 even as the figure came in slightly below last year's 497,000. The company said it produced 464,000 vehicles in the quarter and deployed 13.7 gigawatts of energy storage products. The year-ago quarter was inflated by a rush of buyers ahead of the expiration of the federal tax credit, making the roughly 10,000-vehicle gap notable for demand strength. Tesla said it will release its third-quarter earnings on October 21 after the bell. The delivery figure is a global number, with improving demand in Europe and China serving as a major export hub.

Tesla delivered more than 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, beating Wall Street's consensus estimates and even the most optimistic view for the company. The company said Friday morning that it built 464,391 vehicles in the quarter, an increase of roughly 6,000 deliveries compared to the second quarter, though sales were still down from the same period last year, when Tesla delivered 497,000 vehicles. That quarter, Tesla's best ever, was helped by a rush of U.S. buyers looking to take advantage of an expiring federal tax credit. Before Friday's numbers were released, Tesla's U.S. sales were down nearly 20% year-over-year in the U.S. market, according to Cox Automotive, amid the absence of new consumer models and buyer backlash over Elon Musk's political activities. Tesla has looked to other markets to make up for lost U.S. sales, with sales rising again in Europe and continued strong sales out of its factory in China, and earlier this week the company announced it had secured up to $30 billion in new lines of credit to support projects including the Cybercab, the Tesla Semi, the second-generation Roadster, and the Optimus humanoid robot.

Rivian sold more electric vehicles than ever in the third quarter, delivering 19,248 vehicles and building 19,751, roughly 45% more than it delivered in the same period last year, with the launch of its new, more affordable R2 SUV driving much of the gain. The quarter was the first full sales period for the R2 after it launched in June, though Rivian did not break out how many of the deliveries were R2 SUVs. Rivian is betting it will sell between 20,000 and 25,000 R2 vehicles by the end of the year, which would make it one of the fastest-selling EVs in U.S. history, second only to Tesla's Model Y, and it plans cheaper models costing as low as around $45,000. If it hits those numbers, the company believes it can sell between 65,000 and 70,000 vehicles this year, including its R1 lineup and its commercial electric van, which would be its best sales year ever after being stuck at around the 50,000-vehicles-sold mark. Rivian builds the R2 at its factory in Normal, Illinois, and is also building a new factory outside Atlanta, Georgia, where it expects to build as many as 300,000 vehicles per year in the near future, with the option to expand that capacity; the company will release its full third-quarter financial results on October 29.

Tesla reported 486,532 third-quarter deliveries, smashing the consensus estimate of 462,000 vehicles, while producing 464,391 vehicles during the quarter. Model 3 and Model Y deliveries accounted for 478,237 of the total, with other models contributing 8,295, and Tesla said 1% of the deliveries total was subject to operating lease accounting. The quarterly tally was the second highest on record, behind the 497,099 vehicles delivered in Q3 of 2025, and ahead of the 480,126 delivered in Q2 and 358,023 in Q1. Analysts generally expect healthy demand trends in the wake of the Middle East conflict, with a key development being the vote on EU-wide FSD approval, recently delayed to December from a prior meeting of the EU's Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles scheduled for October 6. Tesla's European sales are already improving, with registrations up 61.9% year over year in France during September, 38.4% higher in Sweden, and up 24.8% in Spain. Shares of Tesla rose 1.8% in premarket action after the report was released.

Tesla produced over 464,000 vehicles and delivered over 486,000 vehicles in the third quarter of 2026, while deploying 13.7 GWh of energy storage products. The Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 457,387 vehicles produced and 478,237 delivered, with the remaining 7,004 produced and 8,295 delivered coming from other models. Tesla will report its third quarter 2026 financial results after market close on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, followed by a live question and answer webcast at 4:30 p.m. Central Time. The company noted that vehicle deliveries and storage deployments represent only two measures of its financial performance and should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly results.

Rivian Automotive plans to equip its first R2 vehicles with LiDAR and its internally developed RAP1 autonomy computer for employees by the end of 2026, while customer deliveries are now expected to begin in 2027, according to Electrek. The timeline marks a shift from the company's earlier communications, as Rivian introduced the third-generation RAP1 chip last December, rated at 1,600 sparse INT8 TOPS, and said at the time the technology would arrive in late 2026. The R2 launched in June without the new hardware, though a production-ready-looking R2 equipped with LiDAR was later spotted near Rivian's Irvine headquarters. Rivian VP of Investor Relations Chip Newcom said production of the RAP1 system will initially focus on the R2, with employees receiving the technology first before the rollout expands to customers in 2027, leaving the late 2026 target technically intact but initially applying only to employees. Rivian SVP of Autonomy and AI James Philbin said the rollout is expected to begin toward year-end, initially reaching early-adopter customers with R1 Gen 2 vehicles and later Gen 2 hardware revisions, including fleets Rivian classifies as Phase II and Phase III, with the company aiming to extend the technology across its full Autonomy+ fleet later next year. Separately, Lucid Group and Bolt have entered a strategic partnership to develop and launch autonomous mobility services across Europe, jointly developing an autonomous driving system-ready vehicle platform designed to support SAE Level 4 autonomous mobility, while France has begun testing two vehicles to evaluate Tesla's Full Self-Driving system after the Netherlands' road authority RDW provisionally approved it for Dutch roads in April.

FF EAI Robotics Ecosystem, trading as FFR, is pursuing a proposed all-stock acquisition of Faraday Future Intelligent Electric's EAI Robotics business valued at approximately $200M. FFAI's robotics business spans 24 products across three robot forms and five product series, with cumulative shipments of 552 units through August. The business generated approximately $1.52M in cumulative revenue and reported an average gross margin of about 30.9% for its four-core full-stack AI robotics products in the second quarter. The proposed deal remains subject to due diligence and approvals, with robotics revenue projected at $7.1M in 2026 and $45.17M in 2027. Shares of FFR fell 1.6% in after-hours trading Thursday to $1.20.

Suzuki has asked its Indian suppliers to shut down production one day a week for machine maintenance. According to two people familiar with the matter, the company aims to prevent unexpected stoppages and maintain quality ahead of planned production increases. It is said to be the first time Suzuki has made such a request of Indian suppliers. Its Indian subsidiary Maruti Suzuki is preparing to raise annual production capacity from about 2.4 million units to 4 million units by 2030. According to the sources, Suzuki President Toshihiro Suzuki met with Indian suppliers in August and asked them to plan capacity on the basis of a six-day workweek. Maruti Suzuki subsequently asked suppliers to sign affidavits by the end of the year confirming that production lines for its parts would not operate seven days a week. According to the sources, Suzuki is asking suppliers to shift to a model of 20 hours a day and six days a week by September 2027, which would give production machinery four hours of rest each night and a full day for maintenance. As output rises, there are concerns that keeping machines running every day would increase the risk of factory accidents, unexpected stoppages and quality problems.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that the company cut memory specifications on its next-generation Optimus robot chips to scale production, after Micron said humanoid robots could require hundreds of gigabytes of memory each. In a post on X, Musk said Tesla cut the AI5 chip's memory in half to 72GB and the AI6 chip's memory by a third to 144GB, calling it the only way to get enough volume for Optimus production and saying it greatly reduces cost. He added the cuts should have a negligible effect on Optimus performance because memory bandwidth is a bigger limiting factor than total memory capacity. On Micron's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said humanoid robots are expected to need more than 200 gigabytes of memory and multiple terabytes of storage per unit, similar to autonomous vehicles, and that physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade. Tesla has reportedly placed its first large-scale component order for roughly 5,000 Optimus units and aims to eventually build 1 million units a year.

Tesla, the US electric vehicle maker, showed a notable recovery trend in its European new vehicle registrations in September. Portugal's registrations were 2.283 times the level of the same month a year earlier, France rose 61.9 percent year on year, Sweden gained 38.4 percent, and Spain climbed 24.8 percent, while Norway edged up 2.2 percent and Denmark 2.9 percent, according to figures released by automotive industry associations in each country. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, Tesla's registrations in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the European Free Trade Association rose 43.3 percent in the January-August period from a year earlier, outpacing the 38.8 percent growth for EVs overall. Rico Luman, a senior economist at ING Research, noted that because the automotive markets in Norway and Denmark are saturated, EV sales growth is beginning to slow. Meanwhile, Matthias Schmidt, a European automotive market analyst at Schmidt Automotive, said Tesla is likely to see its growth pace slow by 2027 to a level close to that of the overall market as competition with peers intensifies.

Stellantis reported third-quarter 2026 US sales of 324,277 vehicles, essentially flat versus the same quarter a year earlier, while year-to-date sales rose 3% to 958,463 units compared with the first three quarters of 2025. Ram brand sales climbed 29% in the quarter, lifted by a 73% jump in Ram 1500 sales, and Jeep brand sales fell 20% to 128,542 vehicles even as the Cherokee hybrid posted a 7,796% increase on the back of its launch. Chrysler brand sales rose 6% and Dodge brand sales edged up 2%, while FIAT brand sales dropped 83% and Alfa Romeo fell 65%. Michael Orange, Head of U.S. Retail Sales and Network Performance, said retail sales increased for the Ram 1500, up 42%, the Dodge Durango, up 18%, the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, up 14%, and the Chrysler Pacifica, up 7%. The company said orders for the 2027 Ram 1500 Rumble Bee 5.7L sold out their initial 2026 calendar-year allocation in 90 minutes, with the model due in dealerships in the fourth quarter of 2026, and that the FIAT Topolino, Stellantis' first entry into the US micromobility segment, arrived in select dealerships during the quarter.

Toyota opened the Toyota Battery Center of North America in Saline, Michigan, a 30,000-square-foot facility that gives its Michigan-based battery teams expanded capabilities across the full battery-development cycle, from sourcing raw materials to customer applications to recycling. The center serves as a central hub for development and evaluation in partnership with Toyota's North American manufacturing network, supporting evaluation of batteries for Toyota Battery Manufacturing, North Carolina, as well as Toyota's vehicle manufacturing plants across North America. Keita Moritsu, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Toyota Motor North America R&D, said the center is where Toyota's battery leadership expands to North America. On site, engineers and technicians assess battery performance and develop technologies for hybrid, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen, and fully electric vehicles, supporting Toyota's multi-pathway strategy. Toyota will open the facility and research access with the University of Michigan Electric Vehicle Center, and the company noted the opening marks the latest milestone in its more than 50-year history with Michigan. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called the investment a big win for the state's leadership in advanced automotive manufacturing.