Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) gets optimistic outlook from Wall St ahead of Q3 2018 earnings report
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) are holding their gains as the company heads towards its third-quarter earnings call. Following a 12.72% rise on Tuesday amidst the company’s earlier-than-expected earnings announcement and a vocal short-seller’s change of heart, Tesla stock was up 2.51% on Wednesday’s opening bell, breaching the $300 barrier and trading at $301.52 per share.
With the electric car maker invoking a sense of confidence with its upcoming earnings call, several Wall Street analysts have adopted an optimistic outlook on the company. JMP Securities analyst Joseph Osha, for one, gave Tesla an “Outperform” rating and a $350 price target, citing the accumulated “expertise” that the company has exhibited in electric vehicle development and manufacturing.
Baird analyst Ben Kallo has also given Tesla an “Outperform” rating, stating that the company’s positive cash flow could prove sufficient to drive TSLA shares higher. With regards to the upcoming earnings call, Kallo noted that management might provide additional details on how the company intends to increase its production capabilities over the next few quarters.
New Street Research’s Pierre Ferragu has given TSLA stock a “Buy” rating, stating that he expects major free cash flow beat in the third quarter, and continued positive free cash flow in Q4 and beyond. Ferragu noted that Tesla might still raise equity down the line to strengthen its balance sheet, but the company would likely do it only in good market conditions and at the right price.
James Albertine of Consumer Edge further noted that Tesla’s fundamentals had seen a notable improvement in the third quarter, thanks to the ramp of higher-margin Model 3 that sold for around $50,000 to $55,000. The Wall Street analyst has an “Equalweight” rating on Tesla ahead of the company’s Q3 2018 earnings call.
Even Brian Johnson of Barclays, who has an “Underweight” rating on TSLA stock, notes that a sharp increase in Tesla’s deliveries and production have set up a “bear trap.” Johnson further stated that Tesla could have boosted its cash balance by about $800 million in the quarter, bringing the company’s balance to around $3.5 billion.
Tesla shares have exhibited an immense amount of volatility in the past couple of months, partly due to the actions of Elon Musk. During August, for example, Musk posted a tweet stating that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share, and that he had “funding secured.” The fallout of Musk’s “funding secured” tweet included an eventual lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission, who alleged that the CEO misled investors with his Twitter announcement. Musk and the SEC would later reach a settlement, but the damage to Tesla stock would be notable.
Despite the noise surrounding the company and its CEO, though, the fundamentals of Tesla have been exhibiting signs of improvement. When the company released its vehicle production and deliveries report, for one, Tesla revealed that in the third quarter, it had manufactured a total of 80,142 electric cars including 53,239 Model 3, and delivered a total of 83,500 vehicles, comprised of 55,840 Model 3, 14,470 Model S, and 13,190 Model X. VIN registrations for the Model 3 seem to be picking up this October, and a new variant of the electric sedan, the Mid Range Model 3 RWD, was unveiled earlier this month as well.
Overall, this upcoming Q3 2018 earnings call could be historic for the electric car maker. With Tesla out of “production hell,” the company might be on the cusp of entering an era where it is making money. In Elon Musk’s words earlier this year, it’s high time that Tesla starts showing some profit for all its hard work.
Tesla’s Q3 Update letter would be posted on Tesla’s Investor Relations website after markets close today. Tesla would start its Q3 earnings call at 3:30 pm Pacific Time (6:30 pm Eastern Time).
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading -1.02% at $291.14 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the second quarter of 2026 this evening after market close, and investors and analysts are waiting anxiously to see what the company will report for the second three-month span of the year.
Analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s second quarter, but what’s unknown is what Tesla plans to discuss during the call.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.53, while revenues are expected to come in around $26.4 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.39 and $22.19 billion compared to Tesla’s Q2 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.41 on $22.387 billion of revenue. Additionally in Q1, Tesla beat analyst expectations, but shares dropped over 3 percent the following trading day.
What We Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings are pretty sporadic and depend on a handful of things, including current events, investor questions, and more.
Tesla uses a platform called Say to field questions from investors and analysts. These questions are what will be used during the call. Here are the top 5 from the Retail side and top 3 from the Institutional side:
Retail:
“Tesla has missed short-term guidance on robotaxi 3 earnings reports in a row, from 50% coverage of USA by end of 2025 to most recently 7 new cities in 1H26. What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short term goals that they’ve set for themselves?”
“What are the main constraints to expanding robotaxi operations faster, and how do you see that lining up with Cybercab production?”
“What’s the current status of Optimus Gen 3 production ramp, initial deployment in factories, and external sales timeline/volume for 2027? What tasks can we expect the Optimus to perform by end of 2027?”
“To reward long-term Tesla retail shareholders for their loyalty, can you commit to achieving at least half of the goals outlined in your 2025 compensation plan before considering any offers to acquire or merge Tesla?”
“Why has growth of robotaxi vehicles stalled? When will we see cybercab start customer rides?”
Institutional
“Previously, you’ve said Tesla would lead the R&D while SpaceX would lead production for Terafab. Can you provide an update on how that division of responsibilities is evolving, and any additional clarity on the expected capital contributions from Tesla and SpaceX?”
“For autonomous driving, Tesla’s fleet created a huge data advantage by collecting billions of real-world miles. That advantage doesn’t yet exist for Optimus. How should we think about data availability and its impact on Optimus development?”
“Why is it necessary to limit robotaxi operations within specific zones within cities to start? Will every city have to be rolled out this way?”
Tesla will report earnings for Q2 this evening with the Shareholder Deck at 4 p.m. ET, with the call starting around 5:30 p.m. ET.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk handed Grok something no other AI company can get their hands on
Elon Musk says SpaceX will feed engineering data into Grok’s next model, avoiding restricted material.
Elon Musk said Tuesday that SpaceX will feed its internal engineering data into the next major training run for Grok, the AI model now folded into SpaceX following February’s merger. In a post on X, Musk wrote that SpaceX’s “massive corpus of world-class engineering data,” excluding anything restricted under U.S. arms export law, will be added during supplemental training of what he called the “2T run,” a reference to a roughly two trillion parameter model that would nearly double the parameters behind the latest Grok 4.5 that’s rolling out.
SpaceX’s massive corpus of world-class engineering data (excluding material blocked by ITAR) will be added during supplemental training of the 2T run.
This will dramatically improve Grok’s engineering capabilities. https://t.co/BbQEViFByn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
The excluded material that Musk is referring to would fall under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which restricts export of technical data tied to defense and space hardware. That likely rules out propulsion specifics for Merlin and Raptor engines along with guidance and control details for SpaceX’s launch vehicles, but leaves manufacturing knowledge, materials science, and Starlink hardware design on the table.
The announcement extends a pattern that has been building since SpaceX’s Nasdaq debut in June, when the company went public with Grok and xAI’s Colossus supercomputer folded into the pitch to investors.
Days after that listing, SpaceX closed its $60 billion all stock acquisition of coding startup Cursor, giving xAI both enterprise software distribution and a stream of real world developer data to train on. Grok 4.5 launched July 8 running partly on that Cursor training data, with Musk describing it as roughly comparable to Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 but faster and cheaper to run.
Feeding SpaceX’s own engineering data into the next AI model follows the same logic Musk has applied across xAI’s sister companies. Tesla supplies real world driving data and manufacturing expertise, X supplies conversational data, and now SpaceX supplies aerospace engineering data built up since 2002.
Musk did not give a release date for the upcoming AI model, referred to elsewhere as Grok 4.6. He has said the two trillion parameter run is in its final training phase and expected to wrap this week.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
