Tesla Beats Q3 EPS at $0.48 as Revenue Holds Flat at $28.05B

Tesla (TSLA) reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.48 a share, $0.03 above the $0.45 FactSet consensus, on revenue of $28.05 billion that was in line with the $28.06 billion consensus and down 0.2% from a year earlier. Margins rebounded from the second quarter and free cash flow came in far above forecasts, but operating income fell 56% from a year ago, energy storage deployments missed and Tesla gave no numeric outlook. Shares closed at $386.47, up $12.76, per the wire headline. Figures come from Tesla's Q3 update at Tesla Investor Relations as reported by Electrek, unless noted.

Q3 results

Operating income of $718 million compares with a Bloomberg consensus of about $760 million, roughly 5.5% below, by our calculation. GAAP earnings include a $288 million unrealized gain on bitcoin and a $142 million unrealized loss on Tesla's SpaceX investment. Regulatory credit revenue was $113 million, down from $417 million a year ago, a drop of about 73% by our calculation.

Revenue by segment

Deliveries and energy storage

Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles, down 2.1% from a year ago but above the roughly 462,000 consensus, and produced 464,391, drawing inventory down by 22,141 units to 11 days of supply from 15 in Q2. Management said battery availability remained the limiting factor for auto volumes, and the passenger-vehicle backlog ended the quarter at its longest in four years. Deliveries of other models, including Cybertruck, Semi and Model S and X, fell 48%. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up from 12.5 GWh a year ago but below a consensus of about 15.9 GWh.

Spending and cash flow

Free cash flow was $1.53 billion against negative $1.09 billion in Q2 and a Bloomberg consensus of negative $4.51 billion. Capital spending of $4.73 billion was well below the $7.77 billion consensus and the $5.79 billion spent in Q2, though it was more than double the year-ago $2.25 billion. Operating expenses rose 39% to $4.78 billion, with R&D up 69% to $2.76 billion, and stock-based compensation was $1.17 billion versus $663 million a year ago. Tesla's 2026 capital spending guidance, cited ahead of the report, was more than $25 billion, up from roughly $8.5 billion in 2025.

Autonomy, Semi and the product line

In its update Tesla said FSD (Supervised) reached an attach rate of over 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America, a nearly twenty-percentage-point sequential increase, and that it believes FSD is driving demand where it is available. Active FSD subscriptions were 1.74 million, up 67%, according to Electrek's summary. Robotaxi rides using Cybercabs began on September 3 in Austin, and cumulative unsupervised Robotaxi miles grew eightfold from the prior quarter, to nearly two million. Austin operating hours are now 6 a.m. to midnight, and Tesla expects to reduce wait times with more vehicles and better orchestration.

Tesla began volume production of the Tesla Semi, its Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The top variant can go 500 miles at a full 82,000 lb gross combination weight with an efficiency of 1.7 kWh per mile, which Tesla says uses about a third of the energy of a comparable diesel truck hauling the same payload. Tesla also said it has now had two straight quarters of trailing-twelve-month revenue above $100 billion.

Outlook

Tesla gave no numeric guidance. It said it is focused on maximum capacity utilization at its factories and that deliveries and deployments will depend on aggregate demand, supply chain readiness and allocation decisions between sales to customers and use in its own owned and operated fleet. It plans to evolve its product lineup around cost, scale and services powered by its SI software. Production has begun for the Semi in Nevada and for Optimus in Fremont, and capacity build-out for SI compute, solar, battery material and semiconductor manufacturing is underway.

SpaceX merger backdrop

Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees to study a possible merger, and Elon Musk said he thinks a combination would be "a good idea," while stressing there is no agreement on terms. Our midday recap covers the market reaction.

Sources: Tesla Investor Relations, with Q3 figures as reported by Electrek and consensus data from FactSet and Bloomberg. This is informational, not a recommendation to buy or sell.