Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Q2 2019 earnings: A look back at TSLA’s journey from Q2 2018 to the present
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday is poised to be a pivotal point for the electric car maker. While the importance of Q2 2019’s earnings cannot be emphasized enough, it is pertinent to note that just a year ago in Q2 2018, things were a lot different for Tesla. Things were, for lack of a batter term, a make or break for the company.
Tesla was at a much different place in the second quarter of 2018. Prior to Q2 2018, Tesla had failed to meet every Model 3 production forecast that it has announced. Q2 2018 already had an adjusted production target of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week, but the task had proven to be more difficult than expected. Even Q1 2018’s conservative goal, producing 2,500 Model 3 per week, was not met by the end of March 2018.
Tesla dug deep in the second quarter, breaking convention and building GA4 in the Fremont factory’s grounds. The rapid buildout only took a few weeks, and it involved CEO Elon Musk doing manual work with other Tesla employees in an attempt to set up the tent-based production line. Apart from this, Tesla also decided to fly in six airplanes’ worth of robots from Europe as part of an initiative to raise Model 3 production numbers. These measures ultimately allowed Tesla to produce 5,000 units of the electric sedan by the end of the second quarter.

The next two quarters following Q2 2018 will see Tesla’s challenges transition from what Elon Musk described as “production hell” to “delivery logistics hell.” Together with the launch of the Model 3 Performance and the Dual Motor AWD variant, Tesla’s efforts ultimately resulted in the company reaching profitability in both the third and fourth quarter. Vehicle delivery numbers also reached record levels, hitting 90,000 in Q4 2019.
Tesla did have its own set of challenges in this period, and a notable part of it was centered on CEO Elon Musk. The CEO ended up in several Twitter controversies over the past 12 months, from his rows with journalists that seemingly held notable anti-Tesla biases, to his short-lived attempt at taking Tesla private at $420 per share, to his troubles with the Security and Exchange Commission, which resulted in his departure from Tesla’s Chairman position.
Amidst all these challenges, Tesla has expanded its presence in the electric vehicle market. The company has revealed the Model Y, and Tesla has also taken the wraps off its custom Hardware 3 computer, which will be a crucial component of its future Full Self-Driving strategy. The company has also started rolling out improvements to the Model S and X, which are expected to herald even more updates to the flagship vehicles.

In the weeks leading up to Tesla’s release of its Q2 2019 vehicle production and delivery figures, TSLA stock was battered as analyst after analyst from Wall Street expressed reservations about the allegedly declining demand for the company’s vehicles. Yet, following the release of the company’s record-setting numbers, sentiments among TSLA investors have shifted for the better. Tesla has so far been on a path towards recovery in July, recovering around 14% to date following another 21% in June.
Tesla set records in Q2 2019 by producing a total of 87,048 vehicles and delivering approximately 95,200, both in the United States and in other territories such as Europe and China. This quarter’s feat was a blow to the pervading bear thesis insisting that demand for the company’s vehicles is declining. With such strong results, Wall Street is currently expecting Tesla to report an adjusted quarterly loss of $0.39 per share.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading at +0.60% at $257.21 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.
Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.
In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”
Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.
This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”
The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.
Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.
This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.
Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.
The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.
Elon Musk
SpaceX IPO could push Elon Musk’s net worth past $1 trillion: Polymarket
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
Recent projections have outlined how a potential $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO could generate historic returns for early investors. The projections suggest the offering would not only become the largest IPO in history but could also result in unprecedented windfalls for some of the company’s key investors.
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
As noted in a Polymarket Money analysis, Elon Musk invested $100 million into SpaceX in 2002 and currently owns approximately 42% of the company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation following SpaceX’s potential $1.75 trillion IPO, that stake would be worth roughly $735 billion.
Such a figure would dramatically expand Musk’s net worth. When combined with his holdings in Tesla Inc. and other ventures, a public debut at that level could position him as the world’s first trillionaire, depending on market conditions at the time of listing.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists Elon Musk with a net worth of $666 billion, though a notable portion of this is tied to his TSLA stock. Tesla currently holds a market cap of $1.51 trillion, and Elon Musk’s currently holds about 13% to 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, invested $20 million in SpaceX in 2008. Polymarket Money estimates the firm owns between 1.5% and 3% of the private space company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, that range would translate to approximately $26.25 billion to $52.5 billion in value.
That return would represent one of the most significant venture capital outcomes in modern Silicon Valley history, with a growth of 131,150% to 262,400%.
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, invested $900 million into SpaceX in 2015 and is estimated to hold between 6% and 7% of the private space firm. At the projected IPO valuation, that stake could be worth between $105 billion and $122.5 billion. That’s a growth of 11,566% to 14,455%.
Other major backers highlighted in the post include Fidelity Investments, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Bank of America, and Andreessen Horowitz, each potentially sitting on multibillion-dollar gains.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk hints Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet,” Musk said.
Elon Musk recently hinted that he believes Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily if they continue to hold onto their shares, and he reiterated that in a new interview that the company released on its social accounts this week.
Musk is one of the most successful CEOs in the modern era and has mammothed competitors on the Forbes Net Worth List over the past year as his holdings in his various companies have continued to swell.
Tesla investors, especially those who have been holding shares for several years, have also felt substantial gains in their portfolios. Over the past five years, the stock is up over 78 percent. Since February 2019, nearly seven years ago to the day, the stock is up over 1,800 percent.
Musk said in the interview:
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.”
Elon Musk in new interview: “Hold on to your $TSLA stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.” pic.twitter.com/cucirBuhq0
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 26, 2026
It’s no secret Musk has been extremely bullish on his own companies, but Tesla in particular, because it is publicly traded.
However, the company has so many amazing projects that have an opportunity to revolutionize their respective industries. There is certainly a path to major growth on Wall Street for Tesla through its various future projects, including Optimus, Cybercab, Semi, and Unsupervised FSD.
- Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot): Musk has discussed its potential for tasks like childcare, walking dogs, or assisting elderly parents, positioning it as a massive long-term driver of company value.
- Cybercab (Tesla’s robotaxi/autonomous ride-hailing vehicle): a fully autonomous vehicle geared specifically for Tesla’s ride-sharing ambitions.
- Semi (Tesla’s electric truck, with mentions of expansion, like in Europe): brings Tesla into the commercial logistics sector.
- Unsupervised FSD (Full Self-Driving software achieving full autonomy without human supervision): turns every Tesla owner’s vehicle into a fully-autonomous vehicle upon release
These projects specifically are some of the highest-growth pillars Tesla has ever attempted to develop, especially in Musk’s eyes, as he has said Optimus will be the best-selling product of all-time.
Many analysts agree, but the bullish ones, like Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, are perhaps the one who believes Tesla has incredible potential on Wall Street, predicting a $2,600 price target for 2030, but this is not even including Optimus.
She told Bloomberg last March that she believes that the project will present a potential additive if Tesla can scale faster than anticipated.