Investor's Corner
Elon Musk signs agreement for Tesla factory in China with 500k vehicle capacity
Elon Musk has signed a preliminary agreement with the Shanghai government to build a Tesla factory in China. According to reports, the upcoming China factory will be capable of manufacturing 500,000 vehicles per year, rivaling the output of Tesla’s main electric car plant in Fremont, CA.
Reports of Musk’s trip to China emerged yesterday after people familiar with the proceedings revealed that the Tesla CEO will be at an “event” in Shanghai on Tuesday, followed by a visit to Beijing sometime on Wednesday or Thursday. Few other details were provided about Musk’s trip to China, though pictures emerged on social media on Tuesday revealing that the Tesla CEO briefly stopped over in Thailand to drop off the minisub he and SpaceX engineers designed to help rescue the remaining 5 members of the stranded soccer team in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex. Reports of Musk’s signing of an agreement with the Shanghai government emerged soon after.
$TSLA CEO @elonmusk in Shanghai after signing agreement to build Tesla plant in China. pic.twitter.com/5qX85rQcPw
— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) July 10, 2018
Tesla’s upcoming China factory is a key component to the company’s attempts at breaching the world’s largest market for electric vehicles. Amidst the ongoing trade war with the United States, China has opted to place steep tariffs on vehicles imported from abroad, including Tesla’s electric cars. With the new taxes in place, Tesla was forced to raise the prices of its Model S luxury sedan and its Model X SUV by 150,000 yuan ($22,647) to 250,000 yuan ($37,744).
With its own facility in the country, Tesla would be able to bypass China’s steep tariffs regardless of the presence of a trade war. In a previous statement during an earnings call last year, Musk remarked that a factory in China is pretty much the only way for Tesla to rival the price of local electric car manufacturers such as BYD. Musk further noted that a China facility, if and when it does get built, would likely be tasked with the production of the Model Y crossover SUV, a vehicle that is estimated to see a demand of up to 1 million units per year. Apart from the Model Y, Musk further noted that some of the Model 3 would probably be manufactured in the China facility as well.
Tesla’s approval for its China site from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. [Credit: vincent13031925/Twitter]
Tesla was able to capitalize on China’s adjustments to its ownership laws that were implemented earlier this year. Prior to the US and China’s ongoing trade dispute, the Asian economic superpower removed ownership restrictions for facilities owned by foreign companies. This opened the way for Tesla to get an approval for a solely-owned facility in the country. Just recently, an image of Tesla’s approval for its China site from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emerged online, giving yet another sign that the facility is likely to break ground soon.
Tesla’s success in the world’s largest market for electric cars will likely be dependent on how the company could target the greater Chinese auto industry with its lower-priced vehicles. While the Model S and Model X are currently seen as status symbols for the successful and wealthy in the country, the luxury sedan and SUV nonetheless cater to the country’s upper class, which represents a much smaller market. With vehicles such as the Model Y and the Model 3 saturating China as well, Tesla could tap into the country’s ever-growing mainstream electric car market, which is on pace to hit a milestone of 1 million EVs sold in 2018.
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
