Investor's Corner
Tesla Q3 deliveries: Was it a beat or a miss?
Tesla reported its Q3 delivery figures this morning, with 462,890 vehicles making their way to customers throughout the three-month span. However, conflicting reports of a delivery beat or a delivery miss are circulating, but what’s the real answer?
It truly depends on who you ask.
A beat or a miss on deliveries is all based on what is reported vs. Wall Street consensus. Leading up to the delivery announcement this morning, Tesla’s Investor Relations reported that Wall Street consensus was put at 461,798, rounded up to 462,000.
Other outlets reported 460,000 and 461,000.
Tesla reports 462,890 deliveries for Q3 with a strong quarter for energy
This was based on the outlook of 28 different firms and last week, reports circulated that the Wall Street consensus was 462,000, which aligned with what Tesla said in its IR communication.
Tesla IR consensus was 462k pic.twitter.com/qAiJTiNpS2
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 2, 2024
However, those numbers shifted this morning despite no additional firms putting out estimates for Tesla’s third quarter. The consensus number suddenly shifted to 463,000, meaning Tesla’s reported delivery figures would have gone from a slight beat to a slight miss.
Even Ives, who is bullish on Tesla, had his consensus figures shift this morning. Last week in a note, he wrote:
“Next week, Tesla is expected to announce its 3Q deliveries, which we believe will come in above the Street’s 462k unit bogey with whisper numbers around the 465k – 470k range.”
Ives had a different consensus figure this morning, according to a note released after deliveries were reported:
“Tesla just announced 3Q deliveries of 462.9k coming in-line with the Street’s 463.3k estimate and was below Street whisper numbers in the range of 465-470k.”
However, the delivery figures, on either end of the spectrum, are in line with estimates.
Ives wrote in a note this morning that the number Tesla reported was “in-line” with Wall Street, meaning no true upside but a step in the right direction:
“The 463k number we would characterize as good and a step in the right direction but clearly we and the Street were hoping for 3k-5k upside to this number and we will see some pressure on shares this morning as investors walk away from delivery numbers expecting more. Overall, this is a clear improvement from 1H and we believe getting in the range of 1.8 million for the year is still the key and important bogey.”
One thing is for sure: Tesla is still fighting to offset its planned slowdown in annual growth due to its focus on the next-gen platform.
We might not see the 2 million mark for another year or two, but keeping demand up with updated vehicle designs, like the Model 3 Highland, and a more affordable Single-Motor Cybertruck planned for 2025 could keep things interesting, potentially helping to stall the outlook that the true growth phase prior to the Robotaxi rollout is over.
Tesla will rely on a strong Q4, along with its Robotaxi unveiling event to keep things bullish through the remainder of 2024.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the second quarter of 2026 this evening after market close, and investors and analysts are waiting anxiously to see what the company will report for the second three-month span of the year.
Analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s second quarter, but what’s unknown is what Tesla plans to discuss during the call.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.53, while revenues are expected to come in around $26.4 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.39 and $22.19 billion compared to Tesla’s Q2 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.41 on $22.387 billion of revenue. Additionally in Q1, Tesla beat analyst expectations, but shares dropped over 3 percent the following trading day.
What We Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings are pretty sporadic and depend on a handful of things, including current events, investor questions, and more.
Tesla uses a platform called Say to field questions from investors and analysts. These questions are what will be used during the call. Here are the top 5 from the Retail side and top 3 from the Institutional side:
Retail:
“Tesla has missed short-term guidance on robotaxi 3 earnings reports in a row, from 50% coverage of USA by end of 2025 to most recently 7 new cities in 1H26. What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short term goals that they’ve set for themselves?”
“What are the main constraints to expanding robotaxi operations faster, and how do you see that lining up with Cybercab production?”
“What’s the current status of Optimus Gen 3 production ramp, initial deployment in factories, and external sales timeline/volume for 2027? What tasks can we expect the Optimus to perform by end of 2027?”
“To reward long-term Tesla retail shareholders for their loyalty, can you commit to achieving at least half of the goals outlined in your 2025 compensation plan before considering any offers to acquire or merge Tesla?”
“Why has growth of robotaxi vehicles stalled? When will we see cybercab start customer rides?”
Institutional
“Previously, you’ve said Tesla would lead the R&D while SpaceX would lead production for Terafab. Can you provide an update on how that division of responsibilities is evolving, and any additional clarity on the expected capital contributions from Tesla and SpaceX?”
“For autonomous driving, Tesla’s fleet created a huge data advantage by collecting billions of real-world miles. That advantage doesn’t yet exist for Optimus. How should we think about data availability and its impact on Optimus development?”
“Why is it necessary to limit robotaxi operations within specific zones within cities to start? Will every city have to be rolled out this way?”
Tesla will report earnings for Q2 this evening with the Shareholder Deck at 4 p.m. ET, with the call starting around 5:30 p.m. ET.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk handed Grok something no other AI company can get their hands on
Elon Musk says SpaceX will feed engineering data into Grok’s next model, avoiding restricted material.
Elon Musk said Tuesday that SpaceX will feed its internal engineering data into the next major training run for Grok, the AI model now folded into SpaceX following February’s merger. In a post on X, Musk wrote that SpaceX’s “massive corpus of world-class engineering data,” excluding anything restricted under U.S. arms export law, will be added during supplemental training of what he called the “2T run,” a reference to a roughly two trillion parameter model that would nearly double the parameters behind the latest Grok 4.5 that’s rolling out.
SpaceX’s massive corpus of world-class engineering data (excluding material blocked by ITAR) will be added during supplemental training of the 2T run.
This will dramatically improve Grok’s engineering capabilities. https://t.co/BbQEViFByn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
The excluded material that Musk is referring to would fall under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which restricts export of technical data tied to defense and space hardware. That likely rules out propulsion specifics for Merlin and Raptor engines along with guidance and control details for SpaceX’s launch vehicles, but leaves manufacturing knowledge, materials science, and Starlink hardware design on the table.
The announcement extends a pattern that has been building since SpaceX’s Nasdaq debut in June, when the company went public with Grok and xAI’s Colossus supercomputer folded into the pitch to investors.
Days after that listing, SpaceX closed its $60 billion all stock acquisition of coding startup Cursor, giving xAI both enterprise software distribution and a stream of real world developer data to train on. Grok 4.5 launched July 8 running partly on that Cursor training data, with Musk describing it as roughly comparable to Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 but faster and cheaper to run.
Feeding SpaceX’s own engineering data into the next AI model follows the same logic Musk has applied across xAI’s sister companies. Tesla supplies real world driving data and manufacturing expertise, X supplies conversational data, and now SpaceX supplies aerospace engineering data built up since 2002.
Musk did not give a release date for the upcoming AI model, referred to elsewhere as Grok 4.6. He has said the two trillion parameter run is in its final training phase and expected to wrap this week.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
