Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, exceeding the 463,761 analyst expectation cited in the latest report and the 461,974 average of 24 earlier sell-side estimates. Deliveries fell 2.1% from the year-earlier record of 497,099, while shares rose about 5% after the report. Former Tesla President Jon McNeill said the automaker still needs its vehicle business to finance the longer development timelines and large capital requirements of robotaxis and humanoid robots. He described Tesla's renewed emphasis on vehicle sales, including updates to the Model 3 and the upcoming Roadster, as a "back to the future" moment, and said Full Self-Driving software is helping support demand. Energy-storage deployments were weaker at 13.7 GWh, missing the 15.9 GWh consensus for the third consecutive quarter. Prediction-market traders had placed a roughly 480,000-vehicle estimate ahead of the report, closer to the final result than either Wall Street estimate.