Tesla sold 241,300 cars in the third quarter while other automakers saw big drops

Tesla has bucked the wider trend of declining sales brought on by the global chip shortage in the third quarter this year, as it sold 241,300 cars — a total of 102,000 more vehicles than the same quarter last year. It’s the most Tesla has ever sold in a quarter (and for some added perspective, the company sold 367,500 in all of 2019).

The company managed to deliver more vehicles once again despite the fact that major automakers saw huge drops this past quarter. General Motors, the largest automaker in the US, said Friday morning that it only sold 446,997 vehicles in the third quarter — a 33 percent drop from the same period last year.

Tesla has avoided similar problems in part because it has been sourcing different semiconductors and rewriting software on the fly to make those chips work in place of the ones not currently available. Beyond that, the company continues to see strong sales in China, where it started making and selling vehicles in early 2020. The Model Y SUV has also become a popular option in the United States, and Tesla just started selling them in Europe, too.

Even more production is set to come online in the coming months, too, as Tesla has built an enormous part of its factory in Austin, Texas and is finally making it through some of the last approvals to start operating its new plant outside Berlin, Germany. That’s despite delaying some products, like the Cybertruck and second-generation Roadster.