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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s Q2 Earnings Call and how it differs from 2020’s in a big way

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to report Earnings for Q2 2021 later today. Just a year and four days after it revealed its financial performance for Q2 2020, its performance during the second quarter of this year is vastly different from that of last year. With an emerging need for the company’s vehicles and energy products, along with the potential to extend its quarterly profitability streak to eight consecutive quarters, let’s take a look at how the two quarters have differed and what is expected from analysts on the day of the call.

Q2 2020 vs. Q2 2021

Tesla’s Q2 2020 remains one of the biggest “what-ifs” in Tesla’s short and storied history. While the company was riding a wave of momentum due to its three straight reported quarters of profitability, speculation persisted that Tesla might have had issues extending this streak in Q2 ’20. It was a simple enough reason as well. The COVID-19 pandemic was ripping through the world, and Tesla, despite its apparent immunization when it comes to the global semiconductor shortage, was prone to uncertainty at its manufacturing plants that spanned from Buffalo to Shanghai.

The pandemic shut down the company’s main production facility in Fremont for most of the quarter. It affected the company’s trending growth of production throughout its vehicle manufacturing facilities, and Tesla reported lower production figures than in Q1 2020, dropping from 102,627 to 88,272. Deliveries, however, increased from 88,400 to 90,650.

Tesla navigated a difficult Q2 with better-than-anticipated numbers, beating Wall Street expectations with $6.036 billion in revenue, eclipsing Wall Street estimates of $5.146 billion.

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In terms of deliveries and production figures, Tesla continued growth, rising from 180,338 production and 184,800 deliveries in Q1 2021 to 206,421 and 201,250 in Q2. These numbers were attributed to the mass-market Model 3 and Model Y, accounting for an overwhelming percentage of each category for each of 2021’s quarters so far. The Model S and Model X were not being produced during Q1, and deliveries of the Model S Plaid started in Q2. The Model X delivery timeline has not been detailed, but Tesla’s website states the vehicle is set to begin deliveries in January-February 2022.

Situations were vastly different from Q2 ’20 to Q2 ’21. Last year’s second quarter was widely up in the air on what Tesla would report. Its ability to hit profitability once again wasn’t much of a shock to Tesla bulls, but others were impressed by the continuing growth story despite tough economic times. The Q2 showing may have contributed to the automaker’s stock soaring into the stratosphere. Already on an upward trend, the stock would continue to increase in value, peaking out at $900.40.

What analysts are saying on the day of Tesla Earnings

Analysts have already put forth their expectations for Tesla’s Earnings Call later today, but some are still putting in their last two cents as market close comes closer.

Tesla investor and former critic Jim Cramer stated earlier today that he expects CEO Elon Musk to talk about competition and the upcoming release of the Tesla Cybertruck. Cramer sees Tesla’s imminent entrance into the pickup market as the company’s introduction to disrupting Ford’s domination of the U.S. passenger truck sector.

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“What he [Elon] has to deal with for the first time is competition,” Cramer said. “Let’s see what he does with the challenge of others,” he added, sprinkling in details about Lucid’s introduction to the New York Stock Exchange earlier today.

Oppenheimer’s Colin Rusch, interestingly, said that the firm isn’t “super concerned about results this quarter.” Instead, Oppenheimer will be paying close mind to Tesla’s updates of the ongoing construction projects in Austin, Texas, and Germany at Giga Berlin, along with the progress of Full Self-Driving. “From a technology perspective, the progress on autonomy is really the heart of the matter if you’re making a bullish bet here,” Rusch said to Yahoo Finance.

Tesla recently announced that it would offer a $200 per month subscription version of the $10,000 Full Self-Driving suite. Rusch said there is potential for between 10 and 20 million customers during the latter half of this decade. “You get to some pretty heavy numbers from a cash flow perspective, and I think that’s what’s going to be at stake here for the next couple years.”

$TSLA Performance on Earnings Day

At the time of writing, Tesla stock was up over 2.1%, or $13.60, trading at around $656.88. The stock was up over 3% earlier in the day. The anticipation for an extended profitability streak and potential updates regarding the 4680 battery cell, Giga Texas, and the Cybertruck, may have contributed to the increase in price ahead of the call.

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Tesla will report its Earnings for Q2 2021 tonight at 5:30 PM EST, 2:30 PM PST. Prior to the call, Tesla will issue its Q2 2021 Update Letter on the Investor Relations website.

Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess

“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.

In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”

Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.

This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:

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“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”

The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.

Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.

Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles

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That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.

This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.

Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.

The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX IPO could push Elon Musk’s net worth past $1 trillion: Polymarket

The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Recent projections have outlined how a potential $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO could generate historic returns for early investors. The projections suggest the offering would not only become the largest IPO in history but could also result in unprecedented windfalls for some of the company’s key investors.

The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.

As noted in a Polymarket Money analysis, Elon Musk invested $100 million into SpaceX in 2002 and currently owns approximately 42% of the company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation following SpaceX’s potential $1.75 trillion IPO, that stake would be worth roughly $735 billion.

Such a figure would dramatically expand Musk’s net worth. When combined with his holdings in Tesla Inc. and other ventures, a public debut at that level could position him as the world’s first trillionaire, depending on market conditions at the time of listing.

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The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists Elon Musk with a net worth of $666 billion, though a notable portion of this is tied to his TSLA stock. Tesla currently holds a market cap of $1.51 trillion, and Elon Musk’s currently holds about 13% to 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.

Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, invested $20 million in SpaceX in 2008. Polymarket Money estimates the firm owns between 1.5% and 3% of the private space company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, that range would translate to approximately $26.25 billion to $52.5 billion in value.

That return would represent one of the most significant venture capital outcomes in modern Silicon Valley history, with a growth of 131,150% to 262,400%.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, invested $900 million into SpaceX in 2015 and is estimated to hold between 6% and 7% of the private space firm. At the projected IPO valuation, that stake could be worth between $105 billion and $122.5 billion. That’s a growth of 11,566% to 14,455%.

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Other major backers highlighted in the post include Fidelity Investments, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Bank of America, and Andreessen Horowitz, each potentially sitting on multibillion-dollar gains.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk hints Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily

“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet,” Musk said.

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Credit: Grok

Elon Musk recently hinted that he believes Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily if they continue to hold onto their shares, and he reiterated that in a new interview that the company released on its social accounts this week.

Musk is one of the most successful CEOs in the modern era and has mammothed competitors on the Forbes Net Worth List over the past year as his holdings in his various companies have continued to swell.

Tesla investors, especially those who have been holding shares for several years, have also felt substantial gains in their portfolios. Over the past five years, the stock is up over 78 percent. Since February 2019, nearly seven years ago to the day, the stock is up over 1,800 percent.

Musk said in the interview:

“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.”

It’s no secret Musk has been extremely bullish on his own companies, but Tesla in particular, because it is publicly traded.

However, the company has so many amazing projects that have an opportunity to revolutionize their respective industries. There is certainly a path to major growth on Wall Street for Tesla through its various future projects, including Optimus, Cybercab, Semi, and Unsupervised FSD.

  • Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot): Musk has discussed its potential for tasks like childcare, walking dogs, or assisting elderly parents, positioning it as a massive long-term driver of company value.
  • Cybercab (Tesla’s robotaxi/autonomous ride-hailing vehicle): a fully autonomous vehicle geared specifically for Tesla’s ride-sharing ambitions.
  • Semi (Tesla’s electric truck, with mentions of expansion, like in Europe): brings Tesla into the commercial logistics sector.
  • Unsupervised FSD (Full Self-Driving software achieving full autonomy without human supervision): turns every Tesla owner’s vehicle into a fully-autonomous vehicle upon release

These projects specifically are some of the highest-growth pillars Tesla has ever attempted to develop, especially in Musk’s eyes, as he has said Optimus will be the best-selling product of all-time.

Many analysts agree, but the bullish ones, like Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, are perhaps the one who believes Tesla has incredible potential on Wall Street, predicting a $2,600 price target for 2030, but this is not even including Optimus.

She told Bloomberg last March that she believes that the project will present a potential additive if Tesla can scale faster than anticipated.

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