Investor's Corner
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2021 earnings call summary
With its second-quarter results that include $11.958 billion in revenue and $1.1 billion of GAAP net income, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has all but proven that it could be a sustainable business. With Q2 2021 in the bag, after all, Tesla has now posted eight profitable quarters in a row, and that’s despite an ongoing chip shortage and supply chain issues.
As discussed in the company’s Q2 2021 Update Letter, Tesla achieved some milestones in the second quarter. Commissioning has started in some areas of Gigafactory Texas, and Giga Berlin is also moving forward. What’s more, Gigafactory Shanghai has also completed its transition as the company’s primary vehicle export hub. The development of 4680 cells has also moved forward. Even Tesla Energy hit some stride in Q2 2021, with battery storage deployments tripling year-over-year in the second quarter. The same was true for Solar Roof deployments.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q2 2021 earnings call. I will be updating this article in real-time, so please keep refreshing the page to view the latest updates on this story. The first entry starts at the bottom of the page.
15:40 PT: And that’s a wrap, everyone! I gotta admit, it’s kind of sad that this may one of Elon Musk’s last regular earnings call appearances. It does make sense, though, as Tesla is in a much better place now compared to before. We can never forget Elon’s most memorable earnings call moments, though. Those will live in Tesla history.
Anyway, thanks for staying with us for our Live Blog once more. Until the next time!
15:38 PT: Elon mentions a number of key tidbits about Tesla Energy. With enough cells, Tesla could hi an annualized production of 1 million Powerwall’s next year. Long-term, Musk also noted that Tesla and its suppliers would have to produce 1,000-2,000 GWh worth of batteries per year.
When asked about the company’s FSD subscription program, Musk highlighted that Tesla has to make the system work very well first. Until then, it would be difficult to forecast just how well FSD would do. “Once we have FSD fully deployed, then the value question will be clear,” Musk said.
15:30 PT: Pierre Ferragu News Street Research inquires about sourcing the company’s 4680 cells. Elon confirms that Tesla is working with its existing suppliers to produce 4680 cells for its vehicles. He also noted that Tesla’s iron-based vehicles will not use 4680 cylindrical cells, as predicted by some of the company’s more ardent bulls. Elon believes it would be ideal to do 1-3 cell formats, especially considering the massive backlog in demand for the company’s product lineup.
15:25 PT: Rod Lache of Wolfe Research asks about Tesla’s estimates for innovations such as rear castings and 4680 cells. Musk notes that making predictions is difficult. “You need a lot of crystal balls to predict exactly what it would be,” the CEO said. A follow-up question on the company’s advances in cell manufacturing technology was asked. Tesla notes that the company is making progress, but there are still challenges. Tesla notes that more than 90% of the processes have been proven, but things are still limited by the ones that have not been proven. The company, however, is happy with its dry electrode process.
15:20 PT: When asked about other services that Tesla could offer, Elon Musk noted that FSD would be the main service that the company would offer. The CEO did note that Tesla is the leader in electrification and autonomy. This is an accurate statement, regardless of the controversy that surrounds the company.
Investor questions begin. First up is Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer. He asks about the take rates for FSD. Musk notes that it’s not worth promising on this right now, as it’s not meaningful. Tesla is focused on making FSD widely available. The analyst asks about any developments with regulators and their understanding of FSD technology. Musk responds that Tesla does not see a fundamental inhibitor in this light.
Musk reiterates his previous point, noting that once autonomous driving systems are proven to be safer than human drivers, regulators would likely be more welcome. He also reiterates his previous example of elevators, which used to be manual but are now fully automated. The same thing will likely happen with autonomous driving.
15:15 PT: Last retail question for retail investors asked if Elon Musk would be open to interviews every so often on prolific TSLA bulls’ YouTube channels. “I would do it annually,” Musk said, seemingly after pondering the point. He also noted that over time, he would not be speaking in Tesla earnings calls anymore unless there’s something really important that he has to address. Elon would likely only speak during the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting.
15:12 PT: Elon notes that Tesla has a massive amount of equipment that will be coming for the mass production of 4680 cells. “Most likely, we’ll hit an annualized rate of 100 GWh per year by the end of next year,” Musk said.
15:10 PT: A question about the progress of the 4680 cells was asked. Musk noted that in limited volumes, the 4680 cells are reliable enough for vehicles already. It’s just a matter of overcoming challenges that are present when mass manufacturing the 4680 cells. “We will definitely make 4680 reliable enough for vehicles. There are a number of challenges when transitioning from small-scale production to large-scale production,” Musk said. The 4680 cells’ reliability has been validated, though, with cells having been tested for the *equivalent* of 1 million miles.
15:07 PT: A question about Tesla’s plan to open the Supercharger Network to other EVs was brought up. Elon Musk notes that the process would be simple and app-based for non-Tesla owners. He did state that there will be a time constraint. “The biggest constraint to Superchargers is time,” Musk said, adding that there are times when charging stations are packed and other times when they are empty. “Tesla will also be smarter in terms of how it charges for electricity,” Musk added, noting that Tesla will use time-based pricing for non-Tesla EVs.
Non-Tesla EVs would have to use a Supercharger adapter, which Musk jokes would be available on Supercharger Stations. “Our goal is to support the advent of sustainable energy. Our intention is not to create a walled garden that we can use to bludgeon our competitors,” Musk jested. It was also highlighted that opening the Supercharger Network to other EVs would result in the system to grow even faster than ever before.
15:02 PT: Musk noted that Tesla is looking to strengthen its raw material supply chain. He states that Tesla no longer uses cobalt in its LFP packs, and the company may even shift to iron-based cells in the future as opposed to nickel-based cells. “We expect to have zero cobalt in the future,” Musk said. The CEO added that all stationary energy storage like Powerwalls and Megapacks will use iron-based battery cells.
15:00 PT: The Tesla executive noted that the company plans to overshoot on cell for vehicles and routing cell output to Megapack and Powerwall if there is excess. And just like its present strategy, shortages in cells would likely result in a reduction in the production of the Powerwall and the Megapack.
14:58 PT: Say questions from retail investors begin. First question is about the Cybertruck production. The company noted that it would be looking to ramp Cybertruck production in Gigafactory Texas after the Model Y production starts in the TX-based facility.
Elon Musk highlights the complexity of producing vehicles, and how each EV is comprised of thousands of parts. He notes that Tesla is fastest in history for scaling large manufactured objects, comparable to the Model T. He also noted that the Cybertruck and the Semi’s volume production would be greatly affected by cell availability.
However, Tesla is expecting to see a big boost in cell availability next year. “Maybe not in January,” Musk said, but sometime in the coming year. Musk hints at Tesla having twice as many cells next year compared to 2021. This is impressive considering that this year is already record-breaking.
Seemingly avoiding his typical over-optimistic estimates, Musk emphasizes that these are just current predictions and his estimates could change depending on challenges or obstacles that might come up.
14:53 PT: Musk concludes with a statement about Full Self-Driving, and how he is confident that Tesla could achieve autonomous driving.
Tesla Chief Finance Officer Zachary Kirkhorn takes the floor, noting that the company’s financials even without credits improved substantially. He highlights Tesla’s decreasing ASP while maintaining margins for its vehicles, which was made possible by optimizing the company’s operations to a significant degree.
The CFO confirms that Tesla’s numbers for the year would be more notable in the third and fourth quarter. “Our 2021 volumes will skew for the second half of the year,” Kirkhorn said.
14:48 PT: Elon discusses the Model Y line in Giga Berlin, which would be different from the Model Ys produced thus far. He still maintains that Giga Berlin and Giga Texas could go live with Model Y production later this year.
“The Model Y line in Texas and Berlin will look mostly like the Model Ys we make, but there will be substantial differences. The Model Y in Berlin will have a cast rear body and cast front body. We’re going to structural packs,” Musk said. The CEO did state that Tesla has a backup plan with a non-structural pack and 2170 cells, but 4680 cells will definitely be used for scale production.
14:45 PT: Musk discusses how Tesla rolled out contingencies to handle the challenges brought about by the chip shortage. He credits Tesla’s team and the company’s suppliers for helping the company resolve the material shortages. The CEO also discusses the release of FSD subscriptions, which would likely have high take rates as the advanced driver-assist system becomes more mature.
Musk notes that he is in Giga Texas, and he congratulates the team building its factories. “There’s nothing a year ago, and there’s a mostly complete large factory a year later,” Musk said, lauding Giga Texas’ team.
14:40 PT: Martin Viecha takes the stage and opens with the basics. Elon and other executives are present for the earnings call. Elon starts his opening remarks. He highlights that Q2 2021 was a record quarter, in deliveries, production, and income. He also noted that electric vehicles are now at an inflection point, and that the market is now being more aware that EVs are the way forward.
14:38 PT: And we’re starting!
14:35 PT: A 5-minute delay is nothing to a Tesla veteran.
14:30 PT: And here we go. We’re at standby. 🙂 This is very on-character for Tesla.
14:25 PT: Every Tesla bull remembers, after all, those days when TSLA stock was the very picture of volatility. As someone who has watched Tesla over the years, I’m not really sure which one I prefer. The understated consistency of a mature EV maker or the drama and excitement of a disruptor trying to find its wings?
14:20 PT: Strangely enough, Tesla stock has only risen 2.28% despite the company beating Wall Street’s expectations. I wonder if TSLA shares would see a boost in the coming months once more, just like in previous years? Still, it almost feels strange seeing Tesla only move this much after an impressive earnings report.
14:15 PT: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another live blog of Tesla’s earnings call! It’s pretty amazing that just a couple of years ago, there were still big questions whether Tesla could be a sustainable business. Back then, thinking that Tesla would be profitable for a year straight already seemed like a longshot. And now we have eight consecutive profitable quarters. Anyway, we’re 15 minutes away from the Q2 2021 earnings call. Perhaps this will be a memorable one as well.
Don’t hesitate to contact us for news tips. Just send a message to tips@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Featured
Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins
Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.
Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.
Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.
Cybercab will be on display in Asia this month!
Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/wGmmEastfX— Tesla Asia (@Tesla_Asia) September 4, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.
Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins
Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory
