{"id":19554,"date":"2026-04-23T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/19554\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:16:14","slug":"tesla-q1-earnings-sales-top-forecasts-as-company-sees-tailwinds-boosting-auto-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/19554\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla Q1 earnings, sales top forecasts as company sees ‘tailwinds’ boosting auto business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tesla (TSLA<\/a>) reported first quarter earnings that topped estimates after the bell on Wednesday, with Wall Street focused on the company\u2019s slow-to-evolve Robotaxi rollout and capital expenditures, which are expected to balloon due to the company\u2019s AI ventures.<\/p>\n

Tesla reported revenue of $22.39 vs. $22.08 billion per Bloomberg consensus, up 16% year over year. Tesla posted adjusted EPS of $0.41 vs. $0.35. Tesla\u2019s gross margin also hit 21.7%, vs. 17.7% estimated.<\/p>\n

On the call, CFO Vaibhav Taneja said the company\u2019s 2026 estimate for cap-ex will be \u201cover $25 billion,\u201d and will result in negative free cash flow for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n

Tesla stock jumped in after-hours trade but rolled over following the cap-ex announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe commenced ramp of additional AI compute, new factories across battery and battery materials, and further prepared lines for start of production of Megapack 3, Cybercab and the Tesla Semi,\u201d the company said in its Q1 release.<\/p>\n

The key to Tesla\u2019s growth is the rollout of its Robotaxi service. Over the weekend, the company said it had expanded Robotaxi service to parts of Dallas and Houston. Tesla said Cybercab, Tesla Semi, and its megapack battery production were all on schedule.<\/p>\n

Tesla said robotaxi miles nearly doubled seqentially in Q1, with the company noting Cybercabs would eventually replace the Model Y SUVs used in service.<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0Live coverage of corporate earnings<\/a><\/p>\n

Prior to this expansion, Tesla only offered Robotaxi service in Austin and ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n

Tesla also revealed that its service in Dallas and Houston was \u201cunsupervised,\u201d<\/a> meaning no safety driver is present, which had a limited rollout in Austin.<\/p>\n

The big caveats here with Tesla are that the company doesn\u2019t reveal how many Robotaxis are in the various geographic fleets at any time or how many are unsupervised.<\/p>\n

In addition to spending on new batteries, Cybercab production, Optimus robots, and AI compute, a massive piece of the capex spend will be related to its chipmaking endeavors, a key priority for CEO Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

\"Tesla's Tesla’s new Terafab would be located in Austin, Texas. \u00b7 SpaceX <\/p>\n

Tesla stock jumped last week on optimism on the chip front, with CEO Elon Musk claiming early Wednesday<\/a> that Tesla was \u201ctaping out,\u201d or had completed the final stage of the chip design process for its upcoming AI5 chip, destined for future EVs, massive training clusters, and Optimus.<\/p>\n

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that Tesla would \u201cprobably have Optimus useful outside of Tesla sometime next year,\u201d and that the reveal of Optimus V3 would occur near the start of production, likely July or August.<\/p>\n

Chips like the AI5 would be produced at Tesla\u2019s upcoming Terafab facility, though analysts warn a move to create its own \u201cfab\u201d is highly ambitious and likely a massive engineering, as well as financial challenge.<\/p>\n

Musk is also reportedly asking his team to push up production. Despite the call for \u201clight-speed\u201d movement, Tesla sources told Bloomberg<\/a> that the fab will begin manufacturing silicon by 2029 and then scale up.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s still the core auto business, which reportedly may see a cheaper model<\/a> joining Tesla\u2019s aging product portfolio.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Tesla reported Q1 deliveries<\/a> of 358,023 vehicles globally, versus 364,645 expected, up 6.3% year over year. However, the company\u2019s total from last year was down due to the changeover to the new Model Y, meaning Q1 results from last year were unusually low.<\/p>\n

Pras Subramanian is Lead Auto Reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X<\/a> and on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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