Tesla shares advanced on Friday, rising 2.24% in the session after gaining more than 1.5% in premarket trading, supported by improved China-made vehicle sales, analyst optimism and Elon Musk’s clarification of a major semiconductor project.
Deliveries of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles manufactured at Tesla’s Shanghai factory, including exports, increased 5% year over year to 95,366 units in September, according to China Passenger Car Association data. That extended a run of year-over-year gains to 11 months, following a 3.6% increase in August. Shipments from Shanghai rose 13.7% year over year in the third quarter.
European registrations also improved, with September sales more than doubling in Portugal, rising over 60% in France, 38% in Sweden and 24.8% in Spain. Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, exceeding Wall Street estimates of about 461,000, although total deliveries were still 2.1% lower than a year earlier.
Musk confirmed that Tesla and SpaceX would own and operate Terafab, a proposed chip manufacturing facility in Texas. The initial phase is expected to cost $10 billion to $20 billion, while the broader project could eventually exceed $100 billion. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing are assisting with the project.
Ahead of Tesla’s third-quarter earnings on October 21, analysts focused on AI, autonomy and robotics. Tigress Financial’s Ivan Feinseth reiterated a Buy rating and $550 price target, while Dan Ives maintained an Outperform rating and $500 target, describing Tesla as a “physical AI” platform. Wall Street expects third-quarter earnings of about $0.45 per share on revenue of roughly $28 billion.
