Gary Black Says He Accepts Higher Gas Prices, Increased FSD Awareness Are Driving Tesla Sales, but There's a Catch
Investor Gary Black says Tesla Inc. ‘s (NASDAQ: TSLA ) heightened sales figures in the third quarter of 2026 could reflect a combination of higher gasoline prices linked to the Iran war and increased awareness of the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, but not as much as bullish supporters may think. High Gas Prices Benefiting Tesla In a post on X on Sunday, Black quoted a post by user FutureAZA who disagreed with The Future Fund LLC co-founder’s take that FSD was not a driving factor for Tesla sales. “I’ll accept that it’s both the 50% increase in gas prices since Feb and greater awareness of FSD that are driving $TSLA sales,” Black said in his post. However, the investor then outlined that roughly 35% of Tesla’s sales came from FSD and that the FSD Unsupervised technology had secured approval in “a single digit %” of the country. “I’m going to say it’s primarily higher gas prices driving increased global TSLA deliveries,” he said, also pointing to Rivian Automotive Inc. ‘s (NASDAQ: RIVN ) increased sales figures during the same period, saying that the automaker “blew past 3Q expectations but left its FY’26 guidance unchanged at 65K-70K.” I’ll accept that it’s both the 50% i
Investor Gary Black says Tesla Inc. ‘s (NASDAQ: TSLA ) heightened sales figures in the third quarter of 2026 could reflect a combination of higher gasoline prices linked to the Iran war and increased awareness of the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, but not as much as bullish supporters may think. High Gas Prices Benefiting Tesla In a post on X on Sunday, Black quoted a post by user FutureAZA who disagreed with The Future Fund LLC co-founder’s take that FSD was not a driving factor for Tesla sales. “I’ll accept that it’s both the 50% increase in gas prices since Feb and greater awareness of FSD that are driving $TSLA sales,” Black said in his post.
However, the investor then outlined that roughly 35% of Tesla’s sales came from FSD and that the FSD Unsupervised technology had secured approval in “a single digit %” of the country. “I’m going to say it’s primarily higher gas prices driving increased global TSLA deliveries,” he said, also pointing to Rivian Automotive Inc. ” I’ll accept that it’s both the 50% increase in gas prices since Feb and greater awareness of FSD that are driving $TSLA sales. S.
S. I’m going to say it’s… — Gary Black (@garyblack00) October 2, 2026 The automaker delivered 486,532 units during the third quarter of the year. However, Tesla’s deliveries were still down from last year’s record 497,099, fueled by the end of the $7,500 Federal EV Credit that was rolled back by President Donald Trump on September 30, 2025. ” Black then compared Tesla’s service with Alphabet Inc.
‘s (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) (NASDAQ: GOOG ) Robotaxi service, Waymo, saying that Tesla had secured approval across six metropolitan cities for unsupervised driving. S. metros,” he said, adding that it operated “roughly 4,000+ driverless vehicles nationwide,” compared to Tesla’s 589 in Texas. $TSLA has now reported two consecutive very strong delivery numbers.
0K consensus. That TSLA delivs were down just -2% YoY vs TSLA’s record 2025 3Q, when the $7,500 EV credit was expiring, says it all. m. , saying the automaker was working to improve the FSD system better during nighttime conditions with poor visibility.
“The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” Musk said. Notably, unlike rivals like Waymo, which rely on a vision- and LiDAR-based approach to self-driving, Tesla’s FSD uses only cameras to perform self-driving duties. Read Also: This Week in TSLA: Elon Musk Trims Optimus Memory, Roadster Delays And More Check out more of Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link. com