Tesla delivered a record 343,830 vehicles in the third quarter, but still missed Wall Street forecasts

Tesla announced Sunday that it delivered 343,830 vehicles in the third quarter, a new record and a turnaround from the start of the year, when the closure of its factory in China and related challenges to the opening of factories in Berlin and Austin affected how many vehicles it was able to enter customer driveways.

Despite the rebound and record numbers, the third-quarter delivery figure still fell short of Wall Street's forecast, which ranged between 358,000 and 371,000 vehicles, according to the group surveyed. There was also a larger than usual discrepancy between production and delivery figures. The company produced 365,923 vehicles in the third quarter.

Image credits: TeslaTesla blamed the failure on a lack of capacity in the logistics network it relies on to ship vehicles to customers.

“As our production volumes continue to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks,” Tesla said in a statement. “In the third quarter, we began the transition to a more even regional mix of vehicle builds each week, which resulted in an increase in the number of cars in transit at the end of the quarter. These cars have been ordered and will be delivered to customers upon arrival at their destination."

In other words, Tesla will try to scale beyond its legendary end-of-quarter pushes. CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that he was trying to take a more stable approach. “Customer experience suffers when there is a rush at the end of the quarter. To continue as it is is the right decision,” he tweeted.