Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) pops amid analyst’s expectations of positive Q2 Model 3 deliveries
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) popped on Monday following the release of a positive note from JMP Securities analyst Joseph Osha, who stated that the electric car maker could have delivered over 40,000 Model 3 in the United States during the second quarter. TSLA stock’s upward movement also came amidst a bearish note from longtime skeptic Colin Langan from UBS, who recently doubled down on his pessimistic stance on the company.
In a report published on Monday morning, the JMP Securities analyst stated that he expects Tesla to report Model 3 deliveries of around 43,000 vehicles in Q2, which is nearly double its Q1 US delivery numbers and roughly in line with the company’s forecasts. The JMP Securities analyst estimates Tesla’s total deliveries in Q2 2019 to be around 97,000 vehicles, “with all of the upside coming from Model 3 volume.”
This is far beyond that of other analysts covering TSLA, whose average estimates for the second quarter currently stand at 88,000 vehicle deliveries. As for concerns about how Tesla could raise its Model 3 numbers following its lower-than-expected output in Q1 2019, Osha stated that there appears to be some disconnect. “In general we think the Street is underestimating the pace of recovery in Model 3 demand in the US, and additionally is not accounting for a full quarter of Model 3 exports,” he wrote.
JMP Securities analyst Joseph Osha currently maintains a $347 price target and a Market Outperform rating for TSLA stock.
Osha’s forecasts lie opposite those of longtime TSLA bear Colin Langan from UBS. In a recent note, Langan lowered his price target for Tesla once more, arguing that it “looks possible” that the electric car maker will report sales of around 87,000 vehicles in the second quarter. In his note, Langan maintained his Sell rating on the stock, giving the company a price target of $160. “We expect losses in the second half to increase as deliveries likely soften, and the impact of pricing actions continues to weigh on margins,” Langan said.
In an appearance at CNBC’s Trading Nation last Friday, the analyst also stated that he expects losses in the second half of the year. “We remain very cautious, particularly as you go to the second half of the year. Consensus has them earning a profit. With weakening deliveries and this consistent margin pressure, we expect losses in the second half,” he added.
As for Tesla’s recent rally, which saw the company recover about 18% in the past four weeks, Langan believes that the uptrend was simply due to the impending phaseout of the $3,750 tax credit for Tesla buyers. “You’ve got to realize that July 1 you’ll have another about $1900 phase down of the US energy tax credit. So, you actually have some pull forward this month as people getting ahead of that. I think demand actually will probably drop off more than people are expecting,” he said.
Similar to Goldman Sachs, whose analyst David Tamberrino has maintained a constant Sell rating on TSLA despite the firm’s investment bank holding shares of the electric car maker, UBS, its affiliates or its subsidiaries beneficially owned around 1% or more Tesla shares as of last month, according to a CNBC report. Considering UBS analyst Colin Langan’s longtime bearish stance, this particular detail is quite notable.
Tesla has completed yet another end-of-quarter push, one that involved the company’s employees pushing hard to deliver as many vehicles as possible in the final weeks of June. Leaked emails from Elon Musk in the weeks and days leading up to Q2’s end suggested that the electric car maker was close to its target of delivering more than 90,000 vehicles in Q2. Analysts polled by FactSet, on the other hand, expect Tesla to report a total of 91,000 vehicle deliveries, including 74,100 Model 3 in the second quarter.
As of writing, TSLA stock is trading +2.43% at $228.89 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
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 miss on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, delivering 358,023 vehicles and building 408,386 cars during the three-month span.
As Tesla transitions more toward AI and sees itself as less of a car company, expectations for deliveries will begin to become less of a central point in the consensus of how the quarter is perceived.
Nevertheless, Tesla is leaning on its strong foundation as a car company to carry forward its AI ambitions. The first quarter is a good ground layer for the rest of the year.
Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Results
Tesla’s Earnings Results are as follows:
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.41 Reported vs. $0.36 Expected
- Revenues – $22.387 billion vs. $22.35 billion Expected
- Free Cash Flow – $1.444 billion
- Profit – $4.72 billion
Tesla beat analyst expectations, so it will be interesting to see how the stock responds. IN the past, we’ve seen Tesla beat analyst expectations considerably, followed by a sharp drop in stock price.
On the same token, we’ve seen Tesla miss and the stock price go up the following trading session.
Tesla will hold its Q1 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.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/pkYIaGJ32y
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla Earnings: financial expectations and what we should to hear about
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 this evening after the market closes, and analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s first three months of the year.
Additionally, there will be plenty of things that will be discussed, including the recent expansion of the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) approvals across the globe.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.36, while revenues are expected to come in around $22.35 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.27 and $19.34 billion compared to Tesla’s Q1 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.50 on $29.4 billion of revenue.
Tesla beat analyst expectations last quarter, but the next trading day, the stock fell nearly 3.5 percent. We never quite can gauge how the market will respond to Tesla’s earnings; we’ve seen shares rise on a miss and fall on a beat.
It really goes on the news, and investor consensus, it seems.
What to Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects. Right now, the big focus of investors is the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and what the outlook for Full Self-Driving’s expansion throughout Europe and the rest of the world looks like.
Robotaxi
Tesla just recently expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi program to Dallas and Houston, joining Austin as the first cities in the U.S. to have access to the company’s ride-hailing suite.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Some saw this move as a quick effort to turn attention away from a delivery miss and an anticipated miss on earnings. However, we’ve seen Tesla be more than deliberate with its expansion of the Robotaxi suite, so it’s hard to believe the company would make this move if it were not truly ready to do so.
The company is also working to expand its U.S. ride-hailing service outside of Texas and California, and recently filed paperwork to build a Robotaxi-exclusive Supercharger stall.
Expansion is planned for Florida, Nevada, and Arizona at some point this year, with more states to follow.
Roadster Unveiling
The Roadster unveiling was slated for April 1, and then pushed back (once again) to “probably late April,” according to Elon Musk.
It does not appear that the Roadster unveiling will happen within that time frame, at least not to our knowledge. Nobody has received media or press invites for a Roadster unveiling, and given the lofty expectations set for the vehicle by Musk and Co., it seems like something they’d want to show off to the public.
The Roadster has become a truly frustrating project for Tesla and its fans; evidently, there is something that is not up to the expectations Musk and others have. Meanwhile, fans are essentially waiting for something that is six years late.
At this point, also given the company’s focus on autonomy, it almost seems more worth it to just cancel it, remove any and all timelines and expectations, and surprise people with something crazy down the line, maybe in two or three years. There should be no talk of it.
Full Self-Driving Global Expansion
We expect Musk and Co. to shed some details on where it stands with other European government bodies, as it recently was able to roll out FSD (Supervised) to customers in the Netherlands.
Spain is also working with Tesla to assess FSD’s viability as a publicly available option for owners.
With that being said, there should be some additional information for investors as they listen to the call; no talk of it would be a pretty big letdown.
Optimus
There will likely be a date set for the Gen 3 Optimus unveiling, and we’re hopeful Tesla can keep that date set in stone and meet it. Not reaching timelines is a relatively minor issue, but a company can only do this for so long before its fans and investors start to lose trust and disregard any talk about dates.
It seems this is happening already.
Optimus has been pegged as Tesla’s big money maker for the future. The goals and expectations are high, but it is a privilege to have that sort of pressure when investors know the company’s capability.
Tesla Cybercab gets crazy change as mass production begins
Tesla confirms Cybercab with no steering wheel enters production
