Investor's Corner
Tesla shares surge after Model 3 production update and record deliveries
Tesla’s stocks (NASDAQ: TSLA) are bouncing back after the company released its first quarter production and delivery report, which listed a 40% increase in production from Q4 2017. Tesla also announced that the rate of Model 3 production during the last seven days of March hit 2,020 a week — a fourfold increase over the past quarter.
Deliveries hit new levels as well, with Tesla delivering 29,980 vehicles in total during the first quarter. Among this number, 11,730 were Model S, 10,070 were Model X, and 8,180 were Model 3. By the end of the first quarter, 2,040 Model 3 and 4,060 Model S and X were in transit to customers.
Tesla’s first quarter report affirmed the company’s target of producing 5,000 Model 3 a week by the end of Q2. The California-based electric car maker and energy company also announced that is not requiring an equity or debt raise this year, apart from standard credit lines.
Overall, signs of recovery from Tesla’s stocks were evident during pre-hours trading on Tuesday. Before markets opened, Tesla’s shares rose 6.5% to $268.49.
Tesla’s surge on Tuesday was foreshadowed by several analysts on Monday. Even amidst Tesla’s plunge yesterday, global investment banking firm Jefferies LLC upgraded $TSLA to Hold (PT $250), according to a tweet from CNBC journalist Phil LeBeau. According to Jefferies, there is a “high probability that management and the (Tesla) Board will take more drastic action on guidance and funding to restore credibility” after the company releases its Q1 2018 production numbers.
Jefferies upgrades $TSLA to hold (PT $250) saying after Tesla posts Q1 Production #'s there is "high probability that management and the Board will take more drastic action on guidance and funding to restore credibility."
— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) April 2, 2018
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Baird analyst Ben Kallo also maintained his Outperform rating on Tesla stocks. According to the analyst, Tesla might be able to exceed the lowered expectations for the past quarter.
“While it seems a perfect storm is weighing on the shares, we are buyers into pressure as Model 3 production ramps. We like the set-up headed into Q1 deliveries as we believe sentiment is overly negative, and think Tesla may be able to exceed lower expectations,” Kallo wrote.
Consumer Edge Research Senior Analyst Jamie Albertine also expressed his optimistic expectations for the Elon Musk-led company. In a statement to CNBC News, Albertine stated that if Tesla can make progress with the production ramp-up of the Model 3, the company might have “a very good year” overall.
“This is the most highly contested, I guess, debate of any company that I cover in the auto industry. It’s one of the most highly-debated technology stocks out there. Shorts are, they’re well aware that there is this catalyst coming that might actually be positive. So it’s no surprise that all this negative news is sort of swarming ahead of that potential catalyst. And when you look at it, the Model 3 determines their cash need, period.
“So if they’re on track, even 2,500 units per week within the next few weeks or months still puts them relatively close to their initial guide and well on the way of being cash flow sufficient by means of the Model 3. This reduces the need for them to go back to the market… The story really hinges on the Model 3. That will really cure a lot of these cash questions, and I think they’re gonna have a very good year.”
Tesla’s milestone of producing 2,020 Model 3 in a week was the result of the company’s efforts to ramp-up production during the quarter. As we noted in a previous report, Tesla temporarily shut down the Model 3 line back in February to address bottlenecks and improve its automation systems. A limited number of workers from the Model S and Model X lines were also given the opportunity to help out the Model 3 line during the final week of March.
Tesla shares are currently bouncing back on Tuesday, trading up 4.27% to $263.32 per share as of writing.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
