News
Tesla Q2 Shareholder Conference Call Is Downbeat
The Tesla Q2 shareholder conference call on August 5 revealed a smaller than expected loss per share but with risk that the company may miss its delivery forecast of 55,000 units for the year. Tesla reported 11,532 Model S sedans delivered in the 2nd quarter and expects the same amount to be delivered in Q3, thus trimming its guidance from “50,000 to 55,000” units for the year.
Speaking to Business Insider, Matt Argersinger of Motley Fool writes, “It looks like Model X production and supply issues are hindering production confidence for the remainder of the year. They’re expecting the same number of deliveries in Q3 as in Q2, which means they’ll need almost 17,000 deliveries in Q4 just to hit the low end of the range. That’s going to be a tall order, especially if they run into unexpected production issues.”
Model X
One of the biggest questions surrounding the company is when deliveries of the Model X SUV will begin. Officially, the company says it will deliver a “small” number of Model X cars in the 3rd quarter.
The company suggests that some delays getting parts from outside suppliers have slowed down the building of the final validation versions of the Model X. CEO Elon Musk did admit the roll out of the Model X will be “challenging”.
In its Q2 shareholder letter, Tesla states:
“While our equipment installation and final testing of Model X is going well, there are many dependencies that could influence our Q4 production and deliveries. We are still testing the ability of many suppliers to deliver high quality production parts in quantities sufficient to meet our planned production ramp. Since production ramps rapidly late in Q4, a one-week push out of this ramp due to an issue at even a single supplier could reduce Model X production by approximately 800 units for the quarter. Furthermore, since Model S and Model X are produced on the same general assembly line, Model X production challenges could slow Model S production. Simply put, in a choice between a great product or hitting quarterly numbers, we will take the former. To build longterm value, our first priority always has been, and still is, to deliver great cars.”
Looking Ahead
In 2016, Tesla will have the capacity to build approximately 1,000 Model S and 1,000 Model X cars per week. That mix may vary somewhat as the needs of the marketplace dictate. Initially, more Model X units may be produced than Model S, simply because of pent up demand for the SUV. Musk was at pains to explain that actual production is often somewhat less than full capacity.
Musk did not give a precise date for when the next firmware update, which will enable the Auto-Steer and Self-Park systems, will take place. He would only say that it should happen in the next few months.
Tesla Energy
Tesla is expecting to ramp up its production of its PowerWall and PowerPack products in the 4th quarter. The company has approximately a billion dollars worth of orders pending for the PowerWall and expects that business to grow to a few billion dollars per year by 2017.
When asked what proportion of the energy storage business would be for retail customers, the company indicated that its retail business may be higher than expected and perhaps reach as much as 70% of all orders. The company went on to say that utility scale energy storage could eventually make it possible to shut down half of the world’s electricity generating facilities.
Tesla stock was down by as much as 8% in after hours trading.
A Tesla Semi caught fire in Hayward, California, which caused both directions of traffic to shut down for hours before being completely reopened early on Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said.
The fire occurred just after 5:30 local time in Hayward on Tuesday, as the Semi caught fire in the southbound lanes of I-880 before CHP officials made the decision to shut down both lanes of traffic due to potential risks from hazardous chemical smoke.
There were no injuries reported.
🚨 A Tesla Semi reportedly caught fire, with California Highway Patrol confirming. The Semi was on I-880 SB
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
The cause of the fire is currently unknown, as neither Tesla nor the CHP have not determined a cause.
However, some images taken before the Semi was completely destroyed by the fire seem to indicate this might have been an older unit, as it appears to be one of the designs that Tesla shipped as part of its pilot program, before revising it and starting mass production just a month ago.
@Tslachan From on of the videos looks like it’s an old Semi (not the refresh version that recently started production) https://t.co/KzwmR2kXow
— Area Under The Curve 🎗️ (@AreaUnderCurve) October 28, 2026
At the time of publication, CHP had not returned our request for a comment for additional details, including the Semi involved and any potential collaboration on an investigation between the CHP and Tesla. We will update this story when we hear back from them.
The southbound lanes were reopened at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with the northbound lanes opening last night a few hours after the fire began. The CHP did state that the lithium batteries were “incredibly difficult to extinguish,” according to NBC Bay Area.
The truck’s driver said that the Semi caught fire, but he did not have an explanation.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year.
Tesla’s launch of the “Emergency Drive Away” function a few months back offered owners a safe option to evacuate an area if they were in reasonable danger. The function finally got its first use in the real world, but it appears it was by mistake.
A video shared by u/Joshalander in the r/TeslaLounge subreddit recorded the instance from his vehicle and said the incident took place in Austin this past weekend during the city’s F1 Race.
“Was charging around 6 AM this past Sunday in Austin before heading to the F1 race and heard a pop. Looked over and saw the new emergency drive-away feature in action. Genuinely felt bad for the dude when he got out and realized what happened, since he looked exhausted and only seemed to half-read the prompts.”
🚨 Here’s the first look at Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away function in action:
Apparently this driver accidentally enabled it and drove forward; you can see the Supercharger pull with the car.
Tesla said previously this would cost up to $25k if not used properly. https://t.co/B4qQRrsO6B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
Emergency Drive Away unlatches the Supercharger connector from the vehicle, but still causes damage to both the car and the Supercharger. Tesla has said that it will cost up to $25,000 in repairs to have everything fixed back to normal.
Additionally, the company said that if it were not used in an emergency situation, the driver of the vehicle who activated the Emergency Drive Away feature would be responsible for all repair costs.
Tesla constitutes the following situations as reasonable justifications for activating the feature:
- You face an immediate threat to your life or personal safety.
- You must leave the area immediately.
- Exiting the vehicle is unsafe.
- Unplugging the charge connector would unreasonably delay your departure or expose you to a risk to your personal safety.
After using the feature, Tesla requires the driver to schedule Service so the car can be inspected.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab battery design could make robotaxis even cheaper
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with spare room for a future switch to LFP.
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with empty space inside it on purpose, and the reason points to a cheaper robotaxi down the road.
Robert Sumpf, Tesla’s director of mechanical design engineering for battery modules and packs, said the extra room beside and beneath the Cybercab’s modules was left there so the company can move to lithium iron phosphate cells later. “So, we protected this pack to go to an even lower energy dense chemistry as we scale and need to bring LFP into the platform,” Sumpf said in a Cybercab deep dive with Munro Live.
The Cybercab runs on Tesla’s own 4680 cells with a nickel chemistry today. LFP cells store less energy for their size, so a straight swap would cut range. The reserved space lets Tesla add more LFP cells to make up the difference. In return, Tesla would get cells that cost less, run cooler and survive more charge cycles. LFP became the most used EV battery chemistry in the world last year.
Not all of that room was planned for a chemistry change. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said part of it exists because “we didn’t need as many batteries as we thought we did.” Tesla told Sandy Munro in early 2025 that it was targeting a Cybercab pack under 50 kWh with close to 300 miles of range.
The pack also breaks from the structural design Tesla used in some Model Y and Cybertruck builds. Instead of potting hundreds of cells into one block, the Cybercab uses four separate, individually sealed modules, so a bad module can be replaced without scrapping the whole pack. Sumpf was blunt about the older approach, giving the Model Y structural battery “a grade D” because it was hard to build and nearly impossible to repair. He estimated a fully structural pack gains about 10% more cell volume, but said “the issue is the service cost.”
That cost matters more for a car that rarely sits parked. Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley said replacing an entire pack “before half a million miles is a killer on cost,” which is why remanufacturing and serviceability were built into the design from the start.
The same Munro Live tour produced Moravy’s admission that the Cybercab line at Giga Texas is now outpacing Robotaxi deployments, along with a look at the robotaxi’s unorthodox paint process. Tesla is aiming to deliver the first Cybercabs to outside customers by the end of 2026, though Elon Musk has said the vast majority will stay owned by Tesla and run as a transport service.
Sumpf did not give a date for an LFP version, name a cell supplier or say how a chemistry change would affect range. For now, the 4680 cars keep piling up: Texas DMV records from Tuesday list 544 Cybercabs authorized for Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet, more than the 507 Model Ys on the same roster for the first time.
Tesla Semi catches fire in California: what we know
Tesla’s ‘Emergency Drive Away’ function gets its first use in the real world
