Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, beating Wall Street's expectations and giving the company a much-needed win as its stock claws back from a rough start to the year. The figure landed as analysts remain sharply divided on what comes next — one sees robotaxis and humanoid robots turning 2027 into a breakout year, while another keeps a sell-equivalent rating and a price target roughly two-thirds below where shares traded this summer.
What drove the delivery beat
The numbers were heavily concentrated in Tesla's two mass-market models. The Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 98% of all deliveries in the quarter, which means the rest of the lineup — the Cybertruck included — barely registered. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co. said demand is stabilizing, helped by a rebound in Europe after several years of declines. That European recovery matters because it's been one of the weaker spots in Tesla's global sales picture.
Ives doesn't expect the Cybertruck to move the needle much. He pointed to its high-end market positioning as the reason it won't significantly shift overall demand. That's a polite way of saying what the delivery mix already shows: the truck isn't a volume product, and Tesla's quarter still hinges almost entirely on whether people keep buying Model 3s and Model Ys.
The bull case: robotaxis, Optimus, and a SpaceX merger
Ives is looking past the car business. He predicts 2027 could be Tesla's golden year, driven by two things that don't exist at scale yet: robotaxis and Optimus, the company's humanoid robot. He expects robotaxis to reach more cities in early to mid-2027, with regulation having slowed the rollout so far. Optimus, he said, would follow in the second half of 2027.
The through-line for Ives is a shift in what Tesla actually is. He links robotaxis and Optimus to the company's transition from an EV maker to an AI company. And he's willing to go further: he puts the odds of a Tesla and SpaceX merger above 80% by the end of 2027. On the broader AI trade, Ives argues it's only in its third inning, with chip demand running 13-to-1 against supply. That's a striking ratio, and it's the kind of claim that will be tested by whether the supply chain can actually catch up.
The bear case: price cuts and rising input costs
Not everyone is buying the robotaxi story as a near-term catalyst. Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan kept an Underweight rating on Tesla in July, with a $130 price target — about 67% below the roughly $396 share price at the time. Langan expects price cuts and rising input costs, including copper and lithium, to blunt profit from higher volume. In other words, selling more cars doesn't help much if each car brings in less money and costs more to build.
The stock's performance reflects that tension. Tesla is down nearly 20% year-to-date, but it has mounted a comeback since late July. The delivery beat helps, but it doesn't resolve the margin question. Langan's target implies a lot more pain ahead; Ives's view implies the car business is almost beside the point.
What to watch on Oct. 21
Tesla's earnings report on Oct. 21 will provide the next read on car margins. That's the number that will tell investors whether price cuts and commodity costs are eating into profitability the way Langan expects, or whether Tesla has managed to hold the line while volumes recover. Delivery figures get the headlines, but margins pay the bills. Until that report lands, the bull and bear cases are both running on expectation rather than evidence.
