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Tesla at a tipping point: How a focus on safety and features is building a formidable car brand
Last week, JD Power revealed the results of a study about the public’s perception of electric vehicles and autonomous driving technologies. The results of the survey were not that encouraging, with 68% of the respondents stating that they had zero experience with electric cars. The majority of the study’s demographic also stated that they would not consider an EV as their next car purchase.
Yet, despite these results, one particular vehicle seems to be bucking the trend. In June, Tesla sold just shy of 40,000 Model 3 across the globe, making it the best-selling electric car worldwide. Following the Model 3 was the BAIC EU-Series from China, which was far behind at almost 18,000 units sold. Third place in June’s global EV sales rankings was the BYD Yuan, which sold 6,566 units. The Model 3’s feat is impressive, considering that the market is just beginning to seriously embrace electric cars as a viable alternative to gas-powered automobiles.
Baillie Gifford’s recently-released Annual Financial Report noted that Tesla had reached a milestone with the Model 3, as exhibited by the vehicle becoming the US’ best-selling passenger car by revenue over the past four quarters. This milestone could have been achieved by Tesla because the company has and continues to develop a reputation for building great cars that just happen to be electric, not electric cars that just happen to be good. By emphasizing the innate strengths of electric vehicles, Tesla has created a brand that is becoming synonymous with safety and bleeding-edge features.
The Tesla Model 3, Model S, and Model X are three of the safest vehicles on the road today. This is partly due to the vehicles being designed from the ground up as electric cars. With their generous crush zones and rigid frames, Teslas are capable of protecting their occupants, even in potentially serious crashes. Some of these incidents are shared online through the Tesla community and beyond, and they help spread the word that the company’s vehicles are among the safest vehicles on the road today.
The aftermath of these incidents usually follows a similar pattern too, with a Tesla getting damaged and the other vehicle coming out worse for wear. An example of this could be found in this recent incident involving an otherwise intact Model 3 toppling a fire hydrant after getting rear-ended by a Subaru. As could be seen in pictures of the crash’s aftermath, the gas-powered car looked like it hit a wall when it smashed into the Model 3.
Teslas are essentially computers on wheels, and this is one of the reasons why the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 are among the very few vehicles on the road that can receive new features through free over-the-air updates. This has become a crucial part of the Tesla ownership experience, as cars that are handed over to customers only get better with time. Some of these features, such as Sentry Mode and TeslaCam, have even helped owners catch individuals that vandalize their vehicles.
In a recent report, the Highway Loss Data Institute stated that Teslas are among the least likely vehicles to get stolen in the United States, with the Model S and X nearly 90% less likely to attract thieves than the average automobile. The reasons for this could vary, but the fact that Teslas are equipped with a suite of security features, and the fact that the National Crime Information Center tracked 112 recovered Teslas out of 115 stolen vehicles between 2011 and May 2018, establishes the company’s electric cars as vehicles that are pretty tricky to steal.
Tesla only commands a tiny fraction of the overall automotive market today. Even with the aggressive ramp of the Model 3, Tesla is still far from breaching the mass markets that are dominated by low-cost vehicles that have been around for decades. This does not mean to say that Tesla is not making progress, as the company is steadily increasing its reach in the auto industry’s premium segment. And thanks to the company’s innovations and unique approach to its vehicles, Tesla is making itself into a brand that simply attracts a ton of interest.
An example of this could be seen in Japan recently, where Tesla showcased the Model 3 (which is yet to be distributed to the country) at the Haneda Airport. Not too far from the Model 3 was an exhibit of the gas-powered B-Class from Mercedes-Benz, a premium vehicle from a veteran carmaker that is synonymous with luxury. The interest attracted by the two vehicles among the people at the Japanese airport was very telling.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a photo of himself standing with the Optimus production team inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, arms crossed amid workers in hard hats and safety vests. The image captures a pivotal industrial shift: the same facility space once dedicated to building Tesla’s flagship Model S sedan and Model X SUV is now home to the company’s humanoid robot manufacturing line.
Walking the Optimus production line in Fremont pic.twitter.com/ABS0tuRibW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2026
Tesla’s Fremont Factory, acquired in 2010 from the former NUMMI joint venture between Toyota and GM, has been the company’s original U.S. manufacturing hub since Model S production began in 2012.
The Model X followed soon thereafter. These premium vehicles offered lower annual volumes, recently around 30,000 combined, compared to the high-volume Model 3 and Model Y lines that continue around the site. Over their combined run, the S and X accounted for roughly 610,000 units.
In late January 2026, during Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Elon Musk announced the end of Model S and Model X production in Q2 2026. The final vehicles rolled off the line in early May. Rather than retooling for another vehicle, Tesla chose to convert the dedicated S/X assembly area into a dedicated Optimus Gen 3 production line.
Model 3 and Y manufacturing remains unaffected. Tesla’s official Fremont Factory page now lists Optimus alongside the 3 and Y as core products.
The conversion was executed with remarkable speed. After production stopped, crews dismantled the existing vehicle line and installed entirely new modular equipment—including lines sourced from Germany and dozens of sub-lines for actuators, batteries, and other components—in roughly four months.
Musk described the timeline as “insanely fast,” noting it would be unprecedented for any other manufacturer. Initial Optimus output is expected to ramp slowly due to the robot’s roughly 10,000 unique parts and the brand-new production processes involved. The Fremont line targets an eventual capacity of 1 million Optimus units per year.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Optimus Development Timeline
- August 19, 2021: Optimus (then called Tesla Bot) formally announced at Tesla’s first AI Day. A concept video showed a person in a suit demonstrating the vision for a general-purpose humanoid capable of dangerous, repetitive, or boring tasks using the same AI architecture as Full Self-Driving.
- 2022: Early prototypes displayed. At the second AI Day in September, semi-functional units demonstrated walking across a stage and basic arm movements
- 2023: September videos showed improved capabilities, including sorting colored blocks, precise limb awareness, and holding a Yoda pose.
- 2024-early 2025: Factory integration videos showed Optimus navigating workspaces and handling objects like battery cells.
- January 2026: Gen 3 mass-production activities began at Fremont, with reports of over 1,000 Gen 3 units already operating inside the factory for real-world learning and AI training
- April 2026: Musk confirms Optimus production on converted Fremont line would begin in late July or August 2026. The Gen 3 reveal, originally eyed for Q1, was pushed closer to production start. A second, much larger Optimus factory at Giga Texas is under construction, with volume production targeted for Summer 2027 and long-term capacity of 10 million units annually
- July 1, 2026: Musk’s on-site visit and team photo confirm the Optimus line is operational and the transition is actively progressing
Tesla positions Optimus as potentially its largest project ever, leveraging vertical integration, AI expertise, and car-like manufacturing know-how to scale humanoid robots first for its own factories and later for broader industrial and consumer use.
The Fremont conversion serves as a critical proving ground for this ambitious new chapter in Tesla’s already-rich history.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
