Investor's Corner
Tesla to start Model 3 production at Gigafactory 3 this month: sources
Recent reports from China indicate that Tesla is looking to start Model 3 production in Gigafactory 3 sometime this month. The update was related to Reuters by several sources who are reportedly familiar with the ongoing activities at Tesla’s upcoming electric car production facility.
According to the publication’s sources, the massive factory has been able to acquire government approvals last month. With these secured, Gigafactory 3 has been cleared to start production of the Made-in-China Model 3 as early as October 2019. That being said, the source also mentioned that it remains unclear when Tesla could attain its initial target of producing 1,000-2,000 Model 3 per week at the Shanghai-based site.
“We aim to start some production in October, but the actual production volume depends on many factors including car orders we received, performance of newly hired workers, supply chain and so on. It’s unclear when we can reach the 1,000-2,000 units per week target,” the source noted.
Tesla, for its part, has not issued a comment about the recent reports from China.
Tesla reportedly expects to hit a production rate of 1,000-2,000 Model 3 per week at Gigafactory 3 by the end of 2019. Such a feat would be a victory for the company, whose goals are usually dismissed due to their overly-aggressive timetables. Morgan Stanley, for example, issued a note last July stating that while Gigafactory 3 will likely get activated in 2019, the facility will only produce 35,000 to 40,000 Model 3 per year in 2020. That’s an output of 673-769 Model 3 per week.
Local reports from China told a different story. Contrary to Wall Street’s previous estimates, Ma Chunlei, Deputy Secretary-General of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and Director of Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, mentioned in a statement that the initial capacity of Gigafactory 3 would be around 150,000 units per year or around 3,000 vehicles per week once the facility enters volume production, which is expected to be attained in the first half of 2020.
While Tesla has been quite silent about the official start of Model 3 production in Gigafactory 3, recent messages sent to the Chinese Tesla community from the company seem to be hinting that the Shanghai-based facility is poised to start manufacturing activities in the near future. In a recent social media update, for example, Tesla’s China team informed customers that Standard Range variants of the electric sedan cannot be ordered after October 13, as the date marks the final shipment of base Model 3 to China.
“All Tesla Model 3 Standard Range will not accept orders after October 13th. This will be the last shipment of the Made in US Model 3. Please have your test drive before October 7th and lock-in your orders,” the company wrote.
This update bodes well for the production of the Made-in-China Model 3, as Gigafactory 3 is expected to exclusively manufacture affordable versions of the electric sedan for the Chinese market. That’s the exact same trim that Tesla will stop shipping to China on the 13th of October. With all these reports and updates in mind, it appears that Gigafactory 3’s trial production runs of the Model 3 might be just around the corner.
Investor's Corner
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings call follows the release of the company’s Q4 and full-year 2025 update letter.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings call follows the release of the company’s Q4 and full-year 2025 update letter, which was published on Tesla’s Investor Relations website after markets closed on January 28, 2025.
The results cap a quarter in which Tesla produced more than 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products. For the full year, Tesla produced 1.65 million vehicles and delivered 1.63 million, while total energy storage deployments reached 46.7 GWh.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Results
According to Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Update Letter, the company posted GAAP earnings per share of $0.24 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.50 in the fourth quarter. Total revenue for Q4 came in at $24.901 billion, while GAAP net income was reported at $840 million.
For full-year 2025, Tesla reported GAAP EPS of $1.08 and non-GAAP EPS of $1.66 per share. Total revenue reached $94.83 billion, including $69.53 billion from automotive operations and $12.78 billion from the company’s energy generation and storage business. GAAP net income for the year totaled $3.79 billion.
Earnings call updates
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call. I will be updating this article in real time, so please keep refreshing the page to view the latest updates on this story.
16:25 CT – Good day to everyone, and welcome to another Tesla earnings call live blog. There’s a lot to unpack from Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 update letter, so I’m pretty sure this earnings call will be quite interesting.
16:30 CT – The Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call officially starts. IR exec Travis Axelrod opens the call. Elon and other executives are present.
16:30 CT – Elon makes his opening statement and explains why Tesla changed its mission to “Amazing Abundance.” “With the continued growth of AI and robotics, I think we’re headed towards a future of universal high income,” Musk said, adding that along the way, Tesla will still be impriving its products while keeping the environment safe and healthy.
Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings results
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings come on the heels of a quarter where the company produced over 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has released its Q4 and FY 2025 earnings results in an update letter. The document was posted on the electric vehicle maker’s official Investor Relations website after markets closed today, January 28, 2025.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings come on the heels of a quarter where the company produced over 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products.
For the Full Year 2025, Tesla produced 1,654,667 and delivered 1,636,129 vehicles. The company also deployed a total of 46.7 GWh worth of energy storage products.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 results
As could be seen in Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Update Letter, the company posted GAAP EPS of $0.24 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.50 per share in the fourth quarter. Tesla also posted total revenues of $24.901 billion. GAAP net income is also listed at $840 million in Q4.
Analyst consensus for Q4 has Tesla earnings per share falling 38% to $0.45 with revenue declining 4% to $24.74 billion, as per estimates from FactSet. In comparison, the consensus compiled by Tesla last week forecasted $0.44 per share on sales totaling $24.49 billion.
For FY 2025, Tesla posted GAAP EPS of $1.08 and non-GAAP EPS of $1.66 per share. Tesla also posted total revenues of $94.827 billion, which include $69.526 billion from automotive and $12.771 billion from the battery storage business. GAAP net income is also listed at $3.794 billion in FY 2025.
xAI Investment
Tesla entered an agreement to invest approximately $2 billion to acquire Series E preferred shares in Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, as part of the company’s recently disclosed financing round. Tesla said the investment was made on market terms consistent with those agreed to by other participants in the round.
The investment aligns with Tesla’s strategy under Master Plan Part IV, which centers on bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world through products and services. While Tesla focuses on real-world AI applications, xAI is developing digital AI platforms, including its Grok large language model.
Below is Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 update letter.
TSLA-Q4-2025-Update by Simon Alvarez
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call
Tesla announces massive investment into xAI
