What analysts expect from Tesla’s last quarter with the $7,500 tax credit

Tesla is reporting third-quarter delivery numbers this week and it’s a glass half full or half empty situation. Overall, analysts expect relatively strong sales compared to earlier this year, but weaker numbers than a year ago. And, depending on your perspective, this could mark a rebound — or Tesla’s last good quarter for a while.

Tesla’s own compilation of analyst estimates suggests the company sold about 443,000 vehicles in Q3, down 4% from a year earlier but up 15% from the second quarter.

Analyst consensus estimates from FactSet and Bloomberg are pretty similar, expecting declines from a year earlier for both the third quarter and 2025 overall.

That said, those estimates have been creeping up recently. That’s because, at least in the US, its biggest market, Tesla is selling a lot of Teslas. Like all EV makers, Tesla is seeing lots of sales as would-be buyers pull forward purchases to take advantage of the $7,500 federal tax credit that is expiring today.

And Tesla, for its part, has been leaning in by offering the biggest discounts of any EV maker and prominently advertising the end of the $7,500 credit to juice sales.

Troy Teslike, a prominent Tesla analyst who has continually revised his estimates upward this quarter as he’s clocked what he believes are record sales in the US, most recently estimated global Q3 sales of 476,000, up 3% from a year ago. His full-year estimate is much closer to the consensus, where he expects 1.6 million vehicles to sell, down 9.5% from a year earlier.

Of course, a pull forward in demand necessarily eats into future demand, and other future demand could be stifled by what might be a de facto $7,500 price increase.

We’ll find out soon enough.