Investor's Corner
Tesla releases Q2 results: Sets quarterly production record
This is a quick cut of the main items from the shareholder letter outlining Tesla Q2 financial results:
Summary
- Completed Model 3 design phase
- Increased automotive gross margin on both Model S and Model X
- Exited Q2 consistently producing nearly 2,000 vehicles/week
- Production and demand on track to support 50,000 deliveries in 2H 2016
- Merger agreement to acquire SolarCity signed, subject to shareholder vote
Production
“In Q2, we delivered 14,402 new vehicles consisting of 9,764 Model S and 4,638 Model X, which was slightly higher than what we stated in our July announcement. Model S remains the market share leader in North America and Europe among all comparably priced four-door sedans, and Model X is quickly gaining ground against similarly priced SUVs in all regions.”
“We exited Q2 consistently producing nearly 2,000 vehicles per week and our total Q2 production of 18,345 vehicles constituted a new quarterly production record, up 18% from Q1 and up 43% from Q2 last year.”
These numbers are in line with the 14,370 new vehicles deliveries and the “just under 2,000 vehicles per week” reported in the July 3rd release. So nothing new here.
One good number is that “production hours per vehicle also declined throughout the quarter for both cars”, indicating the ability to continue to produce more cars per hour.
Gigafactory
“Gigafactory construction remains on target to support volume production of Model 3 in late 2017, and we recently accelerated construction to reach a rate of 35 GWh/year of cell production in 2018. This will allow us to meet the needs of our accelerated Model 3 production plan.”
Notice that the 35GWh/year of cell production is currently the total worldwide output.
Earnings
“Our Q2 GAAP net loss was $293 million or a $2.09 loss per share on 140 million basic shares, while our non-GAAP net loss was $150 million, or a $1.06 loss per basic share. Both figures include a $0.05 per basic share loss related mostly to losses from foreign currency transactions.”
According to MarketWatch, “Analysts polled by FactSet [expected] Tesla to report an adjusted loss of 59 cents a share in the second quarter. […] Estimize, which crowdsources estimates from analysts, fund managers, and academics, expected Tesla to report a loss of 54 cents a share, based on 379 estimates.”.
Loss is higher than anticipated. This number scared a few traders that bid the stock lower to 217 in after hours trading, but the stock quickly retraced back to 228, higher than the daily close. For a company like Tesla, where the price is based on future expectations, the earning numbers are really not what counts.
Revenue
Total Q2 GAAP revenue was $1.3 billion, while non-GAAP revenue was $1.6 billion for the quarter, up 31% from a year ago. Total Q2 gross margin was 21.6% on a GAAP basis and 20.8% on a non-GAAP basis.
Also according to MarketWatch, “FactSet analysts [were] expecting sales to reach $1.63 billion in the quarter, compared with $1.20 billion in the second quarter of 2015. […] Estimize [was] expecting sales of $1.55 billion.”
Revenue is pretty much matching expectations, and this will be seen positively by Wall Street.
Gross Margins
“Q2 Automotive gross margin was 23.1% on a GAAP basis. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin excluding ZEV credits increased over 200 basis points from Q1 to 21.9%. We recognized an insignificant amount of ZEV credit revenue in Q2. The strong sequential gross margin increase was primarily due to improved manufacturing for Model X and favorable pricing for Model S. Our warranty accrual rates on new vehicles were generally consistent with Q1.”
Another good number that Wall Street likes a lot: increasing gross margins!
“We delivered fewer cars in Q2 than originally planned as a result of our steep production ramp, which resulted in almost half of Q2 production occurring in the final four weeks of the quarter. Given inflection points in the production ramp and firm shipping cutoffs, shifting production by even a short period of time had a disproportionate impact on the number of cars that were delivered by quarter end.”
This is also nothing new as it was originally disclosed in the July 3rd release.
Services
“Q2 Services and other revenue was $88 million, up 15% from a year ago but down sequentially. The decline was primarily due to having fewer pre-owned cars to sell because of the need to use them to expand our service loaner fleet. Q2 Service and other gross margin was 2.5%, down from 4.7% in Q1, but generally in line with our expectations.”
Stores
“We are also accelerating store openings and plan to add a new retail location every four days on average during the remainder of Q3 and through Q4. We are adding stores in new population-dense markets like Taipei, Seoul, and Mexico City, while also adding stores in our most mature markets like California.”
That is about 45 new stores by the end of the year.
Outlook
“Production and demand are on track to support deliveries of approximately 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles during the second half of 2016.”
Given the Q1 and Q2 reported deliveries, the 2016 deliveries are now slated to be around 79,000, pretty close to the bottom of the previously reported 80,000 to 90,000 range.
“Vehicle production efficiency is improving rapidly and we are now increasing our weekly production rate even further. Barring any further supply constraints, we plan to exit Q3 with a steady production rate of 2,200 vehicles per week, and plan to increase production to 2,400 vehicles per week in Q4.”
“Despite the disciplined pace of capital spending in the first half of this year, we still expect to invest about $2.25 billion in capital expenditures in 2016, in support of our accelerated production plan for Model 3.”
What is not there
Surprisingly there is nothing in the letter about the pending $2.6 billion SolarCity acquisition.
Full Q2 Results
From the Tesla Q2 Shareholder Letter.
Initial Market Reaction
$TSLA stock immediately dropped to $217 right after the close of regular market trading, but after about an hour of extended hours trading it was back to the previous daily close of $225.30, indicating that we should not expect much fireworks when the stock market reopens on Thursday.
Wall Street seems relieved that the weekly production numbers are in line with expectations, and that the corresponding “production ramp” is still in play.
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.
However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.
Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.
Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.
Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.
He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.
Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.
Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.
That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.
🚨 These are the first-ever FSD safety statistics out of the Netherlands, showing it was over 3.5x safer than human driving on Dutch roads.
The most recent numbers out of Tesla for North America show:
-Over 5.5 million miles between accidents for Teslas using FSD
-660k miles… https://t.co/XKlRzgSGEh pic.twitter.com/HX6kzh0ZKc— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.
“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.
Investor's Corner
Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done
Tesla’s Model Y just became South Korea’s best-selling car, beating every domestic model in May.
Tesla did something last month that no foreign car has ever done in South Korea by outselling every vehicle in the country, domestic or imported, finishing the month with Model Y as the single best-selling car across the entire Korean market. According to data from the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association released on June 4, the Model Y recorded 8,762 units sold in May, pushing the Kia Sorento into second place at 7,836 units and the Hyundai Grandeur into third at 5,183 units. It is the first time an imported vehicle has outsold every domestic model on a single-month basis.
Tesla imported 10,866 cars into South Korea in May, making it the top import brand for the fourth consecutive month. BMW followed at 6,555 units, less than two-thirds of Tesla’s total, while BYD registered just 1,032 units. The combined domestic sales of GM Korea, Renault Korea, and KG Mobility last month totaled just 7,019 units, meaning a single Tesla model outsold three Korean automakers combined.
Tesla FSD earns high praise in South Korea’s real-world autonomous driving test
South Korea has historically been one of the hardest markets for foreign automakers to crack. Hyundai and Kia together control close to 70% of the overall market and carry deep consumer loyalty built over decades. Tesla’s path into this market was an uphill battle due to high import duties, limited service infrastructure, and early skepticism about charging networks. In 2024, the Model Y was the best-selling imported car in South Korea with 18,717 units for the full year. By 2025, after the Juniper refresh, it cleared 50,000 units and took the top spot among all EVs.
Year to date, Tesla has a 250.8% increase in the country over the same period last year, and now holds a 30.8% share of the entire imported car segment for 2026. EVs as a category represented 48.6% of all imported passenger car registrations in May. As Teslarati has reported, the Juniper refresh brought meaningful improvements to range, interior quality, and ride refinement that addressed the most common criticisms of earlier Model Y versions. Those upgrades appear to be resonating in markets like South Korea where buyers compare Tesla directly against high end domestic competitors.
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
