Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) first quarter 2023 earnings call comes on the heels of the company’s Q1 2023 Update Letter. Tesla’s first quarter numbers were quite impressive, with the electric vehicle maker meeting EPS expectations despite posting lower gross margins during the quarter.
A number of milestones were highlighted by Tesla in the first quarter. Tesla Giga Berlin was listed with a capacity of over 350,000 Model Y per year, and the FSD Beta program reached 150 million cumulative miles. The Cybertruck is also closer than ever to its first deliveries, with the all-electric pickup truck’s production line now being set up.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q1 2023 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. The first entry starts at the bottom of the page.
17:35 CDT – And that wraps up the Q1 2023 earnings call! Not gonna lie, this is one of the most info-heavy earnings calls to date, with lots of questions answered from both the investor and analyst sides.
Once again, thanks for staying with us for yet another live blog! Until the next one!
17:31 CDT – Following a question from Jefferies, who asked if there is a limit to the direct selling business to grow market share, Elon Musk notes that Tesla’s direct selling strategy seems to be working so far. And while the analyst brought up the issue of customers who may be missing human interactions for things like service, Musk noted that “the best service is no service.” He also noted that Tesla uses the feedback loop to improve car design so it needs less service.
17:29 CDT – Following a question from Barclays, who asked about the margin profile of Berlin and Austin and how it compares to Shanghai. Musk notes that Shanghai is well optimized, though Tesla expects Giga Berlin and Giga Texas to achieve good margins as well.
17:26 CDT – Following a question from Morgan Stanley, Tesla executives such as Elon Musk reiterated that the company doesn’t really think of competitors that much. Executives also noted that Tesla wants all EVs to succeed, as shown by the company opening its Supercharger Network to other brands.
17:21 CDT – A question from Wolfe Research is asked, with the analyst asking about margins on Tesla’s lineup of services.
Elon Musk reiterates that it’s hard to predict these things. Zachary Kirkhorn also cautioned investors not to be too caught up with the short-term, as Tesla typically adopts strategies designed for the long-term. In a way, gross margin levels only matter in terms of how Tesla will invest it in the following years.
Elon Musk also noted that Tesla is in a unique position because Tesla can technically sell its cars for 0% profit now and yield it in other ways in the future (i.e. through autonomy). He notes that really, no other automaker can do that.
17:16 CDT – A question from Goldman Sachs is asked, with the analyst asking if Tesla is still seeing a 1.8 million target for this year, or will the company be going for 2 million.
Elon Musk noted that from a production standpoint, at least, if things go well, Tesla has a shot at 2 million this year. That being said, Tesla feels comfortable with a target of 1.8 million vehicles for 2023.
17:10 CDT – A Baird analyst asks about Tesla’s programs such as Dojo and Optimus. Elon Musk notes that Dojo has a multi-billion dollar potential. “I look at Dojo as a long shot bet — but a long shot bet that could pay off in a very big way,” Musk said.
He also mentioned upcoming projects such as heat pumps for homes and commercial offices. Musk noted, however, that such products are a “back-burner item.”
Tesla also highlights the idea that there is no such thing as an “EV market share vs ICE.” Tesla sees it as a “car market” overall. “All cars will be EVs,” Musk said.
17:03 CDT – A Deutsche Bank analyst asks about specific ways Tesla could further monetize its products, such as the Robotaxi platform.
Musk explains that the Robotaxi idea is quite a general term, though he reiterates that all vehicles with Hardware 3 could be a Robotaxi. The Robotaxi is also almost synonymous with Tesla’s next-generation vehicle.
A question on automotive gross margins was asked. Kirkhorn noted that several factors contributed to Q1 2023 gross margin results. Elon Musk also mentioned interest rate, and uncertainty in the economy contributed to Q1 2023 results as well.
16:59 CDT – Cannacord asks about FSD take rates and if there are any significant positives and negatives. The analyst also asks if FSD pricing will also be dropping.
Elon Musk notes that this is a tricky question since the value of an autonomous car is enormous. He notes that improvements are dramatic, though it’s more of a “two steps forward, one step back” kind of progress. Musk jokes that he believes FSD will be achieved this year (for the nth time now).
“The trend is very clearly towards full autonomy,” Musk said.
Tesla also highlighted that the company is not impacted by lithium pricing because it has contracts in place. After all, on the lithium front, at least, the chokepoint is refining capacity. The same extends to the refining of the cathode and anode materials.
Elon also begs — literally begs — everyone to go into refining, to much laughter from other executives.
16:51 CDT – The fifth investor question is asked: “How has global order intake tracked since the most recent round of price cuts?”
“Orders are in excess of production,” Elon Musk said.
The final question from investors is asked: “Can you give updated specs and pricing for Cybertruck, and any new features that will make it to production?”
Musk states that Tesla will save it for Cybertruck handover happening toward the end of Q3, though he also stated that the wait would be worth it.
“A product like this only comes only once in a while. It will not be disappointing at all,” Musk said.
16:49 CDT – The fourth investor question is asked: “What do you anticipate FY23 automotive gross margins (ex-credits) will be at the company’s current pricing levels?”
Zachary Kirkhorn noted that it’s difficult to predict this at the moment, especially as Tesla is busy with projects such as the Giga Texas battery factory. So far, Giga Texas’ cost optimizations are focused on stabilizing production and lowering 4680 costs. “We see a pretty good projection for Austin factory,” Kirkhorn said, noting that Giga Berlin also has a lot of areas for cost reduction.
Kirkhon also expresses this thanks to Tesla’s supply chain team, though he also noted that commodities remains max pain point for Tesla.
16:45 CDT – Third investor question is asked: “How well are 4680 cells meeting the expectations described on battery day? How long will it be until the cells meet those goals?”
Austin’s 4680 battery cell facility is progressing well. A Tesla executive noted that Giga Texas’ 4680 factory would be 70% lower CAPEX when fully ramped. The lithium corpus christi refinery will also be breaking ground in May. Tesla also achieved a 25% reduction in COGS.
16:43 CDT – Second investor question is asked: “Do you still believe Tesla Energy will be bigger than auto and when will you provide more formal guidance on megapack and overall Tesla energy?”
“I should just clarify, bigger than auto, from the standpoint of GWh deployed,” Musk said. So while Tesla Energy may not have the total revenue of the company’s automotive business, its battery deployments will be substantially larger. He also affirmed growth in line with expectations.
Zachary Kirkhorn also noted that it would be a few more quarters until Tesla publishes guidance on its Energy business.
16:40 CDT – First investor question is up: “What is the process to make auto pricing adjustments? What variables do you consider? How frequently do you review pricing?”
“We do our best to review the production output and macro conditions,” Musk said.
16:39 CDT – Zachary Kirkorn congratulates the Tesla Energy team for a record quarter. “Our storage business is starting to take shape,” he said. He assures that automotive gross margins remain at healthy levels. He highlights the need to focus on cost efficiencies so that Tesla could achieve its goals.
16:36 CDT – Elon Musk’s opening remarks were a recap of Q1. He highlights that the Model Y was the best-selling vehicle in Europe and it also performed amazingly in the United States. He states that Tesla’s operating margins are still among the highest in the industry. Musk also notes that Tesla is looking to make a lot of margins as the company perfects autonomy.
“While we reduced the price significantly in Q1, our operating margins remain the best in the industry,” Musk said.
As for the Cybertruck, alpha versions are being built today. Volume production line is coming along nicely in Giga Texas. Delivery event for the Cybertruck will likely be set for Q3 2023. The demand for the Cybertruck is notable, Musk said, though it will take some time to get its manufacturing line down pat.
Megapack is making breakthroughs, with the battery posting its best quarter ever in Q1. Goal is set at 40 GWh a year for now. He also highlights Tesla’s ramp for the Megapack, such as the start of a new Megafactory in Shanghai.
As for FSD Beta, the program has reached 150 million miles. “This is a data advantage that really no one else has,” Musk said, adding that training data will be key in getting an advantage in the autonomous driving space. He notes that work on the Dojo supercomputer is still ongoing, and that the program would be advantageous in the future. “
“I really think DOJO potential is really significant,” Musk said.
Musk also thanks Tesla’s global team for their milestones this quarter.
16:31 CDT – The earnings call begins! Tesla Head of Investor Relations Martin Viecha opens the call. Elon and other Tesla executives are present.
16:28 CDT – If there’s something quite interesting about this earnings call, it’s the fact that everything seems to be on time. That Update Letter was posted really quickly after markets closed today. Tesla bulls probably appreciate this, as it’s far less stressful than the long wait times for Update Letters several years ago.
16:25 CDT – Looks like the livestream’s about to go live. To be fair, Tesla’s pretty cool for being so open with its earnings call livestreams. There’s one in YouTube and one on Twitter. Here’s the Twitter one.
16:15 CDT – Hi everyone, and welcome to yet another live blog! Tesla’s Q1 numbers are pretty much in line with what TSLA bulls expected. Gross margins took a hit, but that’s understandable because of the company’s aggressive pricing strategy. Tesla’s war chest remains impressive though, at $22.4 billion.
Here’s the YouTube livestream.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Starship reached orbit despite losing an engine, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Flight 14.
SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, and for a few nail-biting minutes it looked like it wouldn’t. During ascent on Flight 14, one of Ship 41’s six Raptor engines shut down early, and SpaceX’s livestream host Dan Huot told viewers the team had decided not to commit to orbit. Minutes later, after what Huot described as a lot of conversation in the control room, the final poll came back in favor, and a roughly 19 second burn of a single Raptor pushed the ship into orbit about 170 miles up.
The reversal matters because SpaceX had written the exit ramp into the mission plan. The company said it would only fire the orbital insertion burn if flight controllers confirmed enough backup hardware remained for the deorbit burn, a condition Teslarati laid out ahead of the flight. Losing an engine was exactly the scenario that rule was built for.
Pressing forward fits Elon Musk’s history. Falcon 1 failed three straight times before its fourth launch reached orbit in 2008, with SpaceX nearly out of money, and Starship was developed by flying prototypes until they broke. What changed this year SpaceX going public, and with $SPCX sliding below its IPO price in July when Flight 13 slipped, the short interest climbed significantly, as Teslarati reported at the time. A Starship potentially lost today with revenue generating next-gen Starlink satellites aboard would have landed directly on shareholders.
Splashdown confirmed. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the first orbital flight of Starship! pic.twitter.com/urjmiwnvNl
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 28, 2026
That pressure showed up after orbit. SpaceX cut a flight planned to last nearly 10 hours to about three, moving splashdown from west of Chile to the North Pacific near Hawaii. SpaceX gave no reason, though Musk said this month the company was being extremely cautious about debris risk. The single Raptor for deorbit worked, and Ship 41 completed its flip and landing burn before breaking apart in the water, an outcome SpaceX expected. Musk has structured SpaceX’s governance to shield long term bets from market pressure.
The payload is the bigger business story. Musk posted that all 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed and are “operating nominally.” Each V3 is rated for about 1 Tbps of downlink and 160 Gbps of uplink, so this single launch adds roughly 26 Tbps, about 10 times what a Falcon 9 load of V2 Mini satellites adds. The V3 is too large for Falcon 9, making Starship the only vehicle that can build out the planned 100,000 satellite constellation, at up to 60 per flight once it reaches routine service. Unlike the 20 V3 units on Flight 13, which reentered on a suborbital path, these will raise their orbits and could begin serving customers within weeks and bring in hundreds of millions of additional dollars in projected Starlink revenue.
SpaceX has already begun winding down Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida in favor of Starship. Reported targets put Flight 15 as early as October 19, leaving about three weeks to diagnose Monday’s engine shutdown before the next orbital attempt.
Starship’s 14th flight is set to launch on Monday, Sept 28. The 75-minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. CT. Live coverage of the mission starts ~35 minutes before launch → https://t.co/uQKQvgaTmJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 27, 2026
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.
SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.
The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.
The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.
Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.
The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 shows off a cleaner, factory-ready design in new app discovery
Renders hidden inside Tesla’s Android app show Optimus Gen 3’s design before any official reveal.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla may have accidentally given a first look at its newest Optimus Gen 3 humanoid robot when photos were found in the Tesla smartphone app.
Design files tucked inside a recent Android version of the Tesla app appear to show the third generation humanoid robot next to the older Gen 2.5 prototype. The assets were extracted from the app package by Tesla community member @wholemars, who posted the renders on X late Tuesday night before deleting them. The Tesla Newswire reshared the side by side comparison on Wednesday, and the images have circulated widely since.
Tesla Optimus Gen 2.5 vs Gen 3 comparison via @WholeMars on X
The files are labeled “gen3” and were built as models for Tesla app’s own interface, as validated directly by Grok to be official.
The comparison shows a robot that looks built for a factory line rather than a lab bench. Gen 2.5’s exposed mechanical linkages and gold plating on the knees and shins are gone. In their place, Gen 3 uses matte black fairings on the lower legs, paired with a more contoured champagne gold body. Flexible covers now seal the joint where the torso meets the upper thighs, keeping bearings and moving parts sealed from debris and unnecessary contact.
The body panels fit more tightly, and the hands, which Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom, look far more refined than those on earlier units.
This most recent leak fills a gap Tesla has left open for most of the year. Elon Musk said on March 31 that Optimus 3 was walking around but needed “some finishing touches” before it could be shown, a delay Teslarati covered when Tesla missed its first quarter reveal target. Musk later said Tesla would hold the design back until closer to production, partly to keep competitors from copying it. No reveal date has been announced.
The app itself has been preparing for Optimus for months. In July, code in the Tesla app pointed to a dedicated robot phone key, a consent screen for collecting video and spatial data while Optimus works inside a home, and an alert system for low battery and mechanical faults. Finished 3D models of Gen 3 suggest the interface owners will eventually use is moving past placeholder code toward something Tesla intends to ship.
Manufacturing is moving in parallel. Tesla tore out the original Model S and Model X lines at Fremont this summer to make room for Optimus production, with a planned capacity of one million robots a year. At Giga Texas, the steel frame of a dedicated Optimus factory is nearing completion ahead of a targeted 2027 start, with Musk pointing to an eventual output of 10 million units annually.
Watch Tesla’s “guardian angel” FSD feature take over for collision evasion
Tesla Roadster event gets delayed due to unfavorable weather
