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Tesla surprises with $312M profit for Q3 as Model 3 margins soar past 20%

Tesla's Fremont factory, where all Model 3s are produced. (Tesla)

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Tesla’s third-quarter earnings for 2018 saw the California-based carmaker beat Wall Street revenue estimates after posting $6.8 billion in revenue and beating earnings estimates with a GAAP profit of $312 million.

The results, which were posted in an Update Letter to investors after the closing bell on Wednesday, October 24, showed third-quarter earnings of $1.75 per share on a GAAP-basis, shattering analyst estimates of -$.19 per share. Revenue was $6.82 billion versus an estimate of $6.33 billion. The company reported an adjusted non-GAAP profit of $512M or $2.90 per share. 

Profitability

Tesla posted a profit of $312 million, attaining the ambitious target set by CEO Elon Musk earlier this year. The electric car maker went through great lengths to reach profitability, from a 9% layoff across the company back in June to a massive delivery blitz in the third quarter that was augmented by volunteer owners who helped deliver vehicles to reservation holders.

“With average weekly Model 3 production through the quarter (excluding planned shutdowns) of roughly 4,300 units per week, we achieved GAAP net income of $312 million. We also delivered on our internal cost efficiency targets, leading to GAAP Model 3 gross margin of more than 20%, which exceeded our guidance,” Tesla stated in the update letter. 

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This is the company’s first profitable quarter since Q1 2013, when the company posted a minor profit. The company also saw its free cash flow rise to $739M, versus a net loss of $436M last quarter.

Revenue

The company’s revenue for the third quarter consisted of $6.09B in automotive revenue and $399M from the energy and battery storage division. Automotive revenue saw an increase of 82% compared to the previous quarter. The energy and battery storage division saw an increase of 6.6% compared to the previous quarter. Overall, total revenue was up  70.5% compared to Q2 and up 229% year-on-year.

The drastic increase in automotive revenue was mainly driven from the company’s Model 3 sales, which rose to over 56,000 deliveries in the quarter. Tesla deployed 93 MW of energy generation and 239 MWh of energy storage products in the third quarter as well, both of which grew over the previous quarter.

Model 3

Elon Musk once noted that the Model 3 was a “bet-the-company” vehicle — a car whose success or failure would determine Tesla’s future. The challenges that Tesla faced with the Model 3 ramp are well-documented, with Elon Musk describing the ordeal as one of the most painful periods of his career. The third-quarter proved to be a breakthrough for Tesla, though, as the company was able to make headway in both the number of vehicles produced and delivered.

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The Model 3 had a gross margin exceeding 20% in the quarter. Tesla continues to expect this to rise to 25%, excluding any ZEV credits.

“Model 3 mix was strong in Q3 due to the launch of AWD and Performance variants. While the average selling price will gradually decline as we introduce lower priced variants, we are not expecting this to impact profitability. Model S and X Performance mix declined roughly 4-fold since 2015, yet Model S and X gross margin (excluding ZEV credits) continued to improve by roughly 600 basis points over the same period of time. Margin growth was caused by gradual cost improvements driven by lowering labor hours per vehicle, reduced cost of raw materials, and various other cost efficiencies. We continue to target a 25% gross margin ex-ZEV credits on Model 3.” – Tesla’s Q3 Letter

Today’s trading session ended with TSLA down 1.92% at $288.50. After-hours, the stock was trading up  8.3% to $312.45.

Tesla’s full Q3 2018 Update Letter can be accessed here.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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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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