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Tesla-obsessed German automakers look to solve multi-year tech deficit
Tesla’s electric vehicle technology is head and shoulders above the rest of the industry. Now, German car companies who are chasing after them are trying to figure out how the multi-year lead Tesla maintains over other automotive companies can be reduced. CEOs are becoming more vocal about the Elon Musk-headed company’s dominance in the electric vehicle sector.
Perhaps the most prominent relationship between Tesla and a German car company lies within Volkswagen’s executives. VW chairman Herbert Diess is an outspoken fan of Elon Musk and has admired the work the South African Tesla frontman has done to combat the spread of dangerous greenhouse gases.
Despite the respect that Volkswagen has for Tesla and Musk, the German car company has admitted that they trail by at ten years. However, Volkswagen executives believe they can catch up.
“Tesla is an impressive manufacturer,” Volkswagen’s electromobility board member Thomas Ulbrich said. “It is a motivator for us. Tesla has ten years more experience. But we are very quick in catching up.”
Volkswagen has combated software woes throughout the development of its ID.3 electric car. These delays have inevitably slowed down Volkswagen’s chase after Tesla, but the company continues to transition some of its German production plants toward electric vehicle manufacturing.
Audi is another German car company that has looked at Tesla as the leader in EV development. This company has focused on its e-Tron EV as its transitionary vehicle. Still, its CEO, Markus Duesmann, has stated that improving combustion engine vehicles will be the main focus moving forward. Electrification can come later.
Duesmann does believe the gas-powered engines that Audi manufactures can be improved and become more sustainable. “They have to be great,” he said. But ultimately, reducing emissions and increasing sustainability and eco-friendly transportation starts with ditching fossil fuels in general.
Duesmann also recently admitted that Tesla has a two year lead in critical areas of the industry, and said that the electric automaker is not ahead in terms of lithium-ion battery technology.
Nevertheless, Tesla’s fleet of EVs continues to improve, while Audi’s focus relies on extending the development of gas and diesel-powered machines.
Finally, BMW is ready to battle Tesla with its rendition, an all-electric 5-series sedan. The company plans to have around five million fully-electric vehicles on the road by 2030, which would mean half a million EVs sold per year.
BMW wants to take a chunk out of Tesla’s market, just like the other two automakers. But BMW’s 5-Series is one of its most popular cars. It sold 350,000 units in 2019, according to Barron’s, and the company believes it could be the key to catching up to Tesla within the next few years.
Tesla has a future in Germany that could end up being bad news for the domestic automakers who continue to set up shop in the European country. With Giga Berlin set to begin producing 500,000 vehicles annually starting July 2021, Tesla could dominate the German market for years to come. Especially considering Tesla’s intentions to manufacture a “completely new battery” at the German plant, automakers in the country must remain on notice.
Giga Berlin has been one of Elon Musk’s main points of focus since announcing the company’s plans to open a facility in November. The announcement and subsequent developments of the Berlin facility may have surged the German car giants to begin paying a little more attention to the next phase of the business.
All indications point toward sustainable and eco-friendly cars being the focus of consumers for years to come. Adapting to and developing these cars takes plenty of time, and while German companies are getting started, the saying “better late than never” comes to mind.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2026, marking a reasonable performance on the various financial metrics. Tesla still plans to hold a call that will field investor questions at 5:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. CT.
Here’s where Earnings came in:
- Total Revenues: $28.046 reported vs. $28.34B expected
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48 reported vs. $0.45 expected
- Operating Margin: 2.6 % reported vs. 2.5% expected
- Operating Income: $718M reported vs. $721M expected
- Free Cash Flow: $1.531B reported vs. ~-$4.51B expected
Tesla $TSLA Earnings Results:
Revenues: $28.046B
Non-GAAP EPS: $0.48
Operating Margin: 2.6%
Operating Income: $718M
FCF: $1.531B— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 21, 2026
Major Takeaways
Full Self-Driving (Supervised)
“FSD (Supervised)⁴ attach rate continued to grow, reaching over 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America – our most mature market – a nearly twenty percentage point sequential increase. We believe that FSD is driving demand in markets where it is available, and we continue to work with regulators to get it approved in other markets.”
Tesla Semi
“We began volume production of Tesla Semi, our Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The top variant can go 500 miles at full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight while achieving an efficiency of 1.7 kWh/mile. That efficiency allows the Tesla Semi to use a third of the energy used by a comparable diesel truck to haul the same payload. In a transportation market where energy is one of the largest components of total cost per mile, this will provide a meaningful advantage to Tesla Semi operators.”
SI Compute
“We plan to reach 400 MW of SI training compute by the end of the year, supporting the development of both vehicle and humanoid robot autonomy software. Additionally, we continued construction for the Austin Fab, where we plan to start commissioning equipment in 2027.”
Robotaxi
“We began deployment of Cybercab into our Robotaxi fleet in Austin. We reached nearly two million cumulative unsupervised miles for our Robotaxi service as of the end of the quarter. Operating hours in Austin are now 6am to midnight, and we expect to reduce wait times via increased fleet supply and improvement of Robotaxi orchestration algorithms. Grok is available in Cybercab with access to Grok Bot and Connectors, which allows users to manage their inbox, calendars, files, chats and tasks – all hands free via voice command – making Cybercab a mode of transport, a productivity space and, with our entertainment options, a second living room.”
Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports its earnings for Q3 today. Here’s what to expect, as the company will reveal its balance sheet after the market closes on Wednesday.
Tesla already reported deliveries just after Q3 ended, and it demolished Wall Street consensus estimates of roughly 462,000 vehicles. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars in the third quarter, which was a big beat, but was down 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up year-over-year.
Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong
For the quarter, analysts have already compiled their predictions for what Tesla will report this afternoon:
- Total Revenues: $28.34B
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.43
- Operating Margin: 2.5%
- Operating Income: $721M
- Free Cash Flow: ~-$4.51B
Here are a few things we are looking forward to hearing about on the call:
Automotive Gross Margin and Overall Profitability
This was 16.3 percent in Q2, down from 19.2 percent in Q1, and was impacted by warranty charges and some fading regulatory credits. Consensus implies overall gross margin near 18 percent, but a miss here would potentially reinforce concerns about pricing pressure on its vehicles.
Pay attention to energy storage margins as well, especially since Tesla missed GWh expectations, although it was still a strong quarter.
Robotaxi/Cybercab, Unsupervised FSD, and Optimus Progress
The Say questions from retail investors usually focus on these types of projects, and this quarter is no different. Scaling the Cybercab fleet beyond Austin amid the open NHTSA safety review, timeline for Unsupervised FSD in customer cars, Robotaxi unit economics, and Optimus cost per unit plus when it could start generating revenue, are all things to be looking for.
Any concrete timelines or regulatory path details will likely move the stock more than the near-term numbers. SpaceX merger speculation, which was detailed during SpaceX’s earnings call last night, may also surface, although the key details were shared last night.
Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for
Say Investor Questions
- How does the Cybercab fleet scale past Austin, and what’s the regulatory path outside Texas given NHTSA’s open safety review?
- When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?
- When will the CyberCab be available for customer purchase/ownership?
- What’s the unit economics per paid robotaxi mile, and how does it compare to the thirty-cent target?
- Tesla has acknowledged that HW3 vehicles cannot support unsupervised FSD. When will owners know whether they can upgrade their hardware for free, and when will Tesla provide a clear plan?
The full Earnings Call will be streamed this evening after market close around 5 p.m. this evening.
SpaceX confirmed the date of Starship’s 15th launch window with some massive ambitions for the mission, as it will attempt to catch Ship for the first time.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed during SpaceX’s Earnings Call last night on October 20 that it would launch Starship for its 15th test flight in November, and there are some incredible things the company wants to try, making it perhaps the most groundbreaking launch in the program’s history.
SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms
The most major development of the call was SpaceX’s intention to catch Ship alongside catching the Super Heavy Booster, something that has happened in the past. SpaceX showed an animation of the Ship catch, which will be done on the launch tower’s chopsticks:
SpaceX has released a new Starship tower catch animation for the upcoming Flight 15! https://t.co/kStn01Da8u
— Truthful🛰️ (@Truthful_ast) October 20, 2026
This monumental goal is to catch both the Ship and Booster in a dual-catch scenario, an incredible feat since SpaceX has never been able to reuse a Ship after launch. Musk said it would be “the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered,” and said it would be a “profound technology milestone.”
Musk said the odds of success on this first Ship catch attempt are “more likely than not,” but SpaceX is ultimately prepared for more tries moving forward. The SpaceX frontman said that, starting next year, Starship would have a “steady stream” of flights through the end of the year.
The cadence will accelerate in 2027, with Musk stating the company plans to target weekly flights in the first half of 2027 and twice-weekly by year-end.
The Flight 15 attempt follows that of Flight 14, which took off in late September and was Starship’s first orbital mission. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, accomplished a controlled ocean splashdown of both stages, and shed more light on potential challenges for the program moving forward.
As of now, the Starship program is firing on all cylinders.
Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.
Tesla Q3 2026 Earnings results: in-line revenues, slight beat on EPS
Tesla reports Q3 Earnings today: here’s what to expect
