Investor's Corner
Polestar’s Q3 revenue and gross profit skyrocket, operating loss trims by 33%
Polestar’s (NASDAQ: PSNY) position as one of two global, pure electric vehicle makers was solidified with a strong Q3 earnings report that featured skyrocketing revenue and gross profit figures and an operating loss that was reduced by one-third. The Swedish automaker reiterated its 50,000-vehicle delivery goal, expecting Q4 to be its strongest three-month showing in company history.
Polestar’s revenue skyrocketed in Q3 from $748 million in 2021 to $1.477 billion this year. The growth was mainly driven by higher Polestar 2 sales and continued commercial expansion across markets. Revenue per vehicle decreased slightly, Polestar said, attributing the slight reduction to product and market mix.
Polestar is currently recognizing its active markets as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, South Korea, Kuwait, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UAE, U.K., and the USA.
Gross profit also grew considerably compared to the same quarter in 2021. Polestar reported a $57 million gross profit in Q3 2022, up from just $1 million last year. This was a result of higher Polestar 2 sales and lower manufacturing costs, which come as companies scale the production of their vehicles. The gross profit growth was slightly offset by “the continued deterioration of the Swedish Krona versus Chinese Renminbi which led to higher cost of sales,” the automaker said.
Polestar accomplished five feats in Q3, including the launch of the Polestar 3, which was met with mixed reviews due to its stylish and competitive design that also features less-than-admirable efficiency. The event provided a spike to the company’s website, only succeeded by user visits following the Superbowl ad the company ran in February.
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- (Credit: Polestar)
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- Credit: Polestar
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- Credit: Polestar
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- Credit: Polestar
Polestar is reaching its 100,000-vehicle production milestone for the Polestar 2 in the near future. The company expects to meet this threshold in Q4 as it expects to deliver at least 19,500 vehicles in 2022’s final quarter. Polestar said it expects Q4 to be its biggest quarter to date as manufacturing growth continues to help the company solidify itself as a major player in the market.
The company’s $1.48 billion in revenues through the first nine months of 2022 only transitions into the $2.4 billion that Polestar expects to deliver for the full year. This is an estimated increase of 80 percent compared to 2021. It also obtained an additional $1.6 billion in financing and liquidity packages from major shareholders, which will, in addition to other potential financing activities, provide Polestar will sufficient funds to operate through 2023.
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Polestar reduced SG&A expenses by 10 percent compared to Q3 2021, from a loss of $199 million to $179 million, and R&D expenses by 51 percent, from a loss of $51 million to a loss of $25 million. It also trimmed its operating loss by one-third compared to Q3 2021. These numbers tell a different story from the first nine months of 2021 compared to the same period this year.
SG&A was up 31 percent for the first nine months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. This was due to “rapid commercial expansion and significantly increased global presence.” R&D expenses were down 22 percent due to lower amortization. Meanwhile, operating loss was up 64 percent, “reflecting investment in the business growth and a $372 million non-recurring, non-cash listing expense.”
Polestar has launched production of the Polestar 3 and plans to start deliveries sometime early next year. It will also launch the Polestar 4 in early 2023, it said.
Polestar shares were up nearly 20 percent at the time of publishing, trading at $5.44 per share.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a Polestar investor or shareholder.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
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![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
