Gary Black: Rising Oil Prices, Not FSD, Were the Main Driver of Tesla's Q3 Deliveries

Investor Gary Black said Tesla Inc.'s third-quarter 2026 sales growth likely reflected a combination of high oil prices tied to the war with Iran and increased public awareness of the company's full self-driving system, but that FSD's push wasn't as strong as bullish supporters believe.

High Oil Prices Benefit Tesla

On Sunday, Black posted on X, citing a post from user FutureAZA, who disagreed with The Future Fund LLC co-founder's view that FSD wasn't a driver of Tesla sales. In his post, Black said: "I accept that a 50% rise in oil prices since February and increased FSD awareness have jointly driven $TSLA sales."

However, the investor then noted that roughly 35% of Tesla's sales come from the U.S., and that FSD's unsupervised driving technology has only been approved in a "single-digit percentage" of areas nationwide.

"I think the main factor driving growth in Tesla's global deliveries is the rise in oil prices," he said, citing sales growth from Rivian Automotive Inc. over the same period, noting the automaker "beat expectations significantly in Q3 but kept its FY2026 guidance unchanged at 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles."

I accept that a 50% rise in oil prices since February and increased FSD awareness have jointly driven $TSLA sales. But since only 35% of Tesla sales come from the U.S., and FSD unsupervised driving is only approved in a single-digit percentage of U.S. areas, I think it's mainly...

— Gary Black October 2, 2026

The automaker delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter. However, Tesla's deliveries still fell short of last year's record 497,099, which were boosted by the expiring $7,500 federal EV tax credit that was eliminated by President Donald Trump on September 30, 2025.

Tesla vs. Waymo

In another post on X, Black also said that despite "very strong" deliveries for two consecutive quarters, Tesla's FSD "scaling progress is far below management's guidance," and investors will focus on "efforts to expand unsupervised autonomous driving ahead of competitors."

Black then compared Tesla's service to Waymo, the robotaxi service under Alphabet Inc., noting Tesla has received approval for unsupervised driving in six metropolitan areas.

"Waymo is authorized to offer public, fully driverless ride-hailing services in 15 U.S. metropolitan areas," he said, adding that Waymo "operates roughly 4,000+ driverless vehicles nationwide," while Tesla has only 589 in Texas.

$TSLA has now reported very strong delivery numbers for two consecutive quarters. On Friday, the company reported Q3 deliveries of 486,500 vehicles, above the consensus estimate of 462,000. Against the backdrop of the expiring $7,500 EV tax credit, Tesla's deliveries fell only 2% year-over-year from the record level in Q3 2025, which says it all. This continues Tesla's...

— Gary Black October 3, 2026

Tesla's Nighttime Robotaxi Struggles

On Saturday, Tesla extended its Robotaxi service cutoff time in Austin from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., saying the company is working to improve the FSD system's performance under poor nighttime visibility conditions. "The main issue we're working to solve is ensuring we don't hit pets when it's hard to see at night," Musk said.

Notably, unlike competitors such as Waymo, which rely on a combination of vision and lidar for autonomous driving, Tesla's FSD uses only cameras to perform autonomous driving tasks.