Investor's Corner
The Tesla Model 3 is rocketing past Europe’s best-selling electric cars: analyst
The Tesla Model 3 achieved yet another milestone as it continues its international ramp. Over the first quarter, the electric sedan from Silicon Valley successfully rocketed past other popular electric cars in Western Europe, taking its place at the top of the region’s list of best-selling EVs.
Berlin-based automotive industry analyst Matthias Schmidt noted that Tesla sold 19,482 Model 3 in the first quarter, a significant lead over the previous #1 EV in the region, the ubiquitous Renault Zoe, which sold 11,049 units over the same period. This is particularly impressive for the Model 3, as it was only available in the market since February, and it was more than twice, or (at times) even three times the cost of the best-selling Zoe. The Nissan Leaf, a veteran in the mainstream EV market, bowed down to the Model 3 as well, selling 10,315 in the first quarter.
The Model 3’s competitors in the premium electric vehicle segment were farther off. The Jaguar I-PACE, which recently received the World Car of the Year award, was 7th place in Europe’s sales, selling 3,012 units in Q1. The Audi e-tron, also a much-hyped vehicle that was, at one time, considered as a potential “Tesla Killer” by skeptics, sold a rather humble 2,526 units in the first quarter, according to the Berlin-based analyst’s data.
In a statement to Forbes, the auto analyst noted that the Model 3’s competition from Europe might be deliberately holding back their sales due to the European Union’s (EU) carbon dioxide (CO2) regulations, which are set to become tighter next year. According to Schmidt, automakers might be aiming to grow their electric car fleets in 2021, in order to bring down their average emissions and avoid fines. Thus, Tesla has all the opportunity it needs to push the Model 3 today, since its all-electric fleet is in no danger from the EU’s tightening emissions rules.
“I expect the Model 3 to finish the year as the top-selling electric car model in Europe helped along by the fact that other manufacturers are reducing supply of their electric models to 2020, with plenty of creative excuses, in order to lower their fleet average CO2 emissions – when it counts – to achieve the next round of EU targets being introduced in 2020 covering 95% of their total fleet and 100% in the following year. Tesla is the only manufacturer that doesn’t have an issue meeting fleet average CO2 emissions and effectively has an open goal up to the end of this year,” the analyst said.
The Tesla Model 3 is proving to be a disruptive vehicle in every region it has been deployed to so far. With Model 3 deliveries focused on North America last year, the electric sedan became the best-selling luxury vehicle in the United States. The Model 3 made its presence known as it made its way into Europe as well. Norway, for one, reported that nearly 60% of all vehicles sold in the country in March were all-electric. More than 18,000 cars were registered in the country during the month, and over 10,000 were all-electric. From this number, 5,822 were Tesla Model S, Model 3, and Model X, which means that one in every three vehicles sold in Norway in March was a Tesla. The Model 3 also made a strong impact in Switzerland, where the all-electric car became the country’s best-selling car at the end of Q1, electric or otherwise.
Investor's Corner
Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.
Tesla reported it delivered 467,762 Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.
🚨 BREAKING: Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2, ANNIHILATING Wall Street expectations of 406,000. Production was reported at 451,758.
Deliveries:
Model 3/Y: 467,762
Other Models: 12,364Production:
Model 3/Y: 442,936
Other Models: 8,822 https://t.co/TTHwQAsKt8 pic.twitter.com/7qI4Zj6FE5— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 2, 2026
The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.
Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.
For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.
Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.
Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing
The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.
Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
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Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.