Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) second-quarter 2022 earnings call comes on the heels of the company meeting analysts’ expectations. Despite the challenges it faced in the second quarter, however, Tesla still achieved an operating margin that’s among the highest in the industry of 14.6%. The company also posted positive free cash flow of $621 million.
Tesla’s war chest continued to grow in the second quarter, though many will likely be drawn to the fact that the company sold the majority of its Bitcoin holdings. At the end of the second quarter, Tesla converted about 75% of its Bitcoin purchases, adding $936 million of cash to the company’s balance sheet.
Tesla also ended the quarter with the highest vehicle production month in the company’s history. This was hinted at by Tesla in a rather subtle update on its factories’ vehicle capacity estimates. As seen in the company’s Q2 2022 Update Letter, Giga Shanghai is now listed with an annual capacity of over 750,000 cars, and the Fremont Factory is listed at 550,000 vehicles per year.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q2 2022 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.
15:33 CDT – And that’s a wrap! Thanks once again for staying with us on yet another Tesla earnings call. Till the next time!
15:30 CDT – Elon shares his thanks to Tesla’s suppliers again. As it turns out, Tesla already uses a lot of custom silicon. This is no surprise, considering Tesla’s tech pedigree.
15:28 CDT – A question about Tesla’s AI projects was asked. Elon notes that while he does not want to steal any thunder from AI Day, he stated that people should expect existing news on AI Day. “I think we’ll be further ahead than most people think,” he said.
15:25 CDT – Toni Sacchonagi from Bernstein asks about Tesla’s vehicle demand and potential pressures. He wonders if Elon and Zach’s comments were just speculations, or if there’s empirical data available on it, like cancellations and the like.
Elon notes that Tesla has no demand problem. It’s a production problem. “It’s always been a production problem,” he said. “We’re trying to make the backlog lower, not longer,” Musk said.
Sacchonagi posts a follow up question about Elon’s commitment to Tesla in the next few years. Elon jokes that if there’s only good news, then he won’t be on Tesla’s earnings call. Like in Q2, with the shutdowns in China. “I’ll work in Tesla as long as I can help advance the course of sustainability and autonomy,” he said.
15:22 CDT – Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer asks about FSD and its pricing. Elon notes that Tesla will increase the price of FSD, probably once the system hits wide beta. With the wide beta, FSD would be made available to everyone who requests (and pays) for it. Musk notes that assuming FSD materializes, it would be extremely cheap for what it provides.
15:17 CDT – Emmanuel Rosner from Deutsche Bank asks about Tesla’s vehicle demand. Is the company worried about its vehicle sales amidst Elon’s views on the economy? Elon notes that Tesla’s main worry is production.
Kirkhorn adds that there does not seem to be much macroeconomic effects on Tesla’s vehicle demand. As for the company’s backlogs, Tesla has a very long runway. The world is not certain, so there’s a lot of things that is yet to be seen. “Demand is something we don’t spend a lot of time talking about,” Kirkhorn said.
Elon also highlighted that there’s a difference between demand and affordability. He adds that he hopes Tesla could reduce its prices a bit. He also notes that Tesla has a good chance of exiting this year with 40,000 vehicles per week. Kirkhorn adds that it will be a challenge to hit such volumes but it’s feasible.
15:14 CDT – Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research asks about Tesla’s 4680 cells. He asks about the cells’ specifics. Are the 4680s more formidable than what they’re advertised as? Tesla notes that its focus on 4680 cells is all about simplicity. However, Tesla has plans to layer in new material technologies. “We’re not holding back.”
Elon describes some challenges in 4680 production. “When something is revolutionary, there are a lot of unknowns,” he said. Tesla is making progress, but the first order of business is to get the basics right. The main target is high production.
Drew notes that a lot of the uber high density battery innovations are not feasible for mass production. He also reiterates that Tesla is more than willing to share its battery innovations with its partners. This is true. Panasonic and LG are also working on their own 4680 cells. Panasonic is even building a factory in Kansas for it.
Elon discusses batteries further. He states that Tesla sees constraints in refining of the materials to make the battery cells like lithium. He adds that there’s not a shortage of materials on Earth, but there’s a need for more refining. “There no fundamental barrier, its simply a rate question here,” Musk said.
“If our suppliers don’t solve these problems, then we will,” Elon Musk added.
15:04 CDT – Final investor question asks about the Cybertruck and its availability. Elon notes that Tesla is hoping to start Cybertruck production by the middle of next year.
15:02 CDT – Tesla doesn’t see major problems for the components barring any Covid-related shutdowns.
15:01 CDT – Is Giga Texas producing 4680 cells already? Tesla exec Drew Baglino notes that the ramp is going. In Q2, Tesla’s Kato Road has ramped significantly. “Kato output has grown 35% month over month,” Baglino said. There are new ramp challenges to overcome in Texas and Berlin, however. That said, Tesla expects 4680 cell production in Texas by the end of this quarter.
16:59 CDT – A question about Andrej Karpathy’s departure was asked. Elon notes that Andrej is awesome, but he has decided to contribute more to core AI at an academic level and get back to coding individually. “We’ve got a team of 120 people in our software AI group that are incredibly talented. I’m highly confident that we’ll solve FSD,” Musk said.
16:57 CDT – Tesla executives like Elon, Drew, and others are now just geeking out. It’s pretty cool to hear. You can really tell that these guys are engineers at heart. “There’s a lot of opportunities to improve casting and extend them to more parts,” Elon Musk said.
16:54 CDT – A question about Tesla’s 4680 batteries was asked. Musk reiterates his explanation about structural packs being like the wings of airplanes, which are now used to hold fuel. Dual usage of 4680 is the superior architecture. “The structural pack is beating the non-structural pack,” Musk said, adding that structural packs will be better over time.
16:52 CDT – A question about Tesla’s cryptocurrency holdings was asked. Elon notes that Tesla’s purpose is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. “Cryptocurrency is a sideshow to the sideshow. Cryptocurrency is not something we think about a lot,” Musk said. “My primary goal here is to have the day of sustainable energy come sooner.”
16:50 CDT – A question about Tesla’s lowering prices was asked. How aggressively will Tesla lower its prices? Elon notes that the wait after customers order a vehicle is substantial. Tesla then tries to predict the inflation rate when a person takes delivery of the car.
“This is fundamentally dependent on macroeconomic inflation. It’s not something we can control,” Musk said, noting that he believes inflation should decline by the end of the year. There could be a slight decrease in car prices with inflation rate starts declining.
Elon and other Tesla executives note that there is a need for lithium processing. Elon Musk invites people get into the refining business again. “It’s like software margins . You can’t lose,” Elon said.
16:46 CDT – The second investor question asks about Tesla’s unified vector space. Elon notes that it’s not necessary for FSD, but it should improve the performance of the system.
16:45 CDT – Investor questions begin. First question deals with the Chinese competition. Elon notes that he has a lot of respect for China’s EV manufacturers. “They’re smart, they’re hardworking, and anybody that’s not as competitive as them will suffer a decline,” Musk said. That said, “Right now the best Chinese EV manufacturer is actually Tesla China,” the CEO added.
16:43 CDT – Kirkhorn notes that it’s still possible for Tesla to hit a growth of 50% this year. “Tesla is positioned for a record-breaking second-half of the year,” he said.
16:41 CDT – The CFO notes that the Tesla Energy business is still components constrained. Operating costs for Giga Austin and Berlin are also being more manageable. “Operating expenses in Austin and Berlin have wound down,” Kirkhorn said. He also explains Tesla’s decision to sell its Bitcoin. Elon says Tesla still has ALL its Dogecoin, though.
16:40 CDT – Zach takes the floor, reiterating that Tesla still made progress despite the challenges presented in the second quarter. He notes that the Fremont factory reached new production records with help from Reno team. Energy business also achieved record gross profit, particularly the Tesla Solar team.
16:38 CDT – Elon still expects Cybertruck production to start at the middle of 2023. “FSD Beta is on track to be released for all of North America by the end of this year,” Musk said. AI Day is also coming, with the CEO saying that the event will be pretty exciting for many.
16:37 CDT – Elon notes that Tesla has made advances in its manufacturing system. Thanks to megacasts, body-welding casting robots have been reduced by 70%. Body shops now are three times smaller than what is normally the case. “But this journey is not over,” Musk said, saying that the Cybertruck has significant manufacturing improvements.
16:35 CDT – FSD Beta has traveled 35 million miles. That’s “more than any other company combined.”
16:35 CDT – Elon notes that Tesla has enough 2170 cells to satisfy all vehicle production this year. 4680 cells will truly make a difference next year. Giga Texas is ramping, ad Tesla is “expecting Giga Texas to exceed 1,000 car per week milestone in a couple of months.”
16:33 CDT – Elon’s opening remarks. He highlights Shanghai’s shutdown. But despite this, it “was still a record-breaking quarter for Tesla.” This means that Tesla can have a really impressive second half of the year. He admitted that supply chain challenges are still prevalent. “It’s been kinda supply chain hell for several years,” Elon said.
16:31 CDT – And it starts! Tesla VP of investor relations Martin Viecha opens the call. Elon’s present, and so is CFO Zach Kirkhorn and a number of other executives.
16:30 CDT – And it’s time! The music is still playing though. Are we looking at a slight delay?
16:28 CDT – Alright, two minutes left. Wonder if Elon would be in the call?
16:25 CDT – To be fair, Tesla did run into its own fair share of issues in the second quarter. This makes the company’s Q2 results even more impressive. Simply put, +42% of revenue, a gross profit of +47%, EBIT of +88%, and GAAP EPS of +91% translate to a “bad” quarter for Tesla.
16:15 CDT – Greetings everyone, and welcome to another Tesla earnings call live blog! The second quarter has been challenging for Tesla, to the point where analysts were actually on point with their predictions on the company’s results. That being said, Tesla still finished Q2 on a strong note, with a strong war chest, while still being profitable.
That’s an accomplishment. Period.
Disclaimer: I am long TSLA.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
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 Semi gets new product launch as mass manufacturing hits Plaid Mode
Tesla revises new Intervention Reporting system with Full Self-Driving
