By all accounts, Tesla's deliveries in Q2 were a home run at first glance with 480,126 vehicles, blowing past the 406,000 Wall Street was expecting. Still, some investors didn't celebrate the good news for long.
With Tesla shares underperforming the broader stock market this year, are the better-than-expected deliveries a sign of more good things to come for investors looking to grow their wealth?
FinanceBuzz breaks down the top takeaways and where investors' heads may be at.
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Under the hood
Over 90% of Tesla's growth was dominated by the Model 3/Y, and Tesla produced fewer vehicles at 451,758 than it delivered, the company reported in its Production, Deliveries and Deployment update. The move also helped draw down inventory, a plus versus carrying a backlog, which in the past has raised concerns.
Energy storage, a profitable segment for Tesla, was strong at 13.5 GWh. This bodes well for this unit which Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla CFO, expects to bounce back.
"In Q1, we deployed 8.8 GWh of energy storage, a 38% sequential decline. However, we still expect 2026 deployments to be higher than 2025," he said on the company's April earnings call.
The strong report gave Tesla shares a morning boost before investors engaged in profit taking with the stock closing down over 7% last Thursday. The U.S. stock market was closed Friday, July 3rd in observance of the July 4th holiday weekend.
Strong deliveries and more
On Monday, Tesla shares popped, closing up over 6% after the company announced, over the weekend on X, that it's expanding the availability of Robotaxi Miami. The fast-growing South Florida mecca joins Austin, Texas, which is already offering the fully autonomous driving vehicles using its full self-driving (FSD) software.
The rides, powered by Model Ys, gave investors a fresh reason to cheer. It also signals the automaker's push to diversify and drive one of the auto industry's most compelling innovations.
Musk reminded investors in April that his company is poised to offer FSD to the masses depending on your global location.
"It's always, I think, worth noting that a Tesla car is incredible value for money, and they're all autonomy-ready, depending on what part of the world you're in. The supervised Full Self-Driving is getting extremely good," he said on the April earnings call.
Tesla earnings to go beyond profit and revenue
The automaker reports quarterly results on July 22 after the close of trading, which will also be live-streamed on Musk's X platform at 5:30 pm ET.
Let's start with the top and bottom line numbers first. Investors are expecting the company to post $25.4 billion in revenue, a 14% jump from the same period a year ago. Profits are expected to grow about 20% to $0.48 per share, as tracked by Yahoo Finance. Details on profit margins and future selling prices may also provide more clarity for investors.
For example, its Model YL, a longer version of its Model Y, is making its debut in the U.S. and Puerto Rico after first being available overseas. It rolls in at a sticker price of around $61,990. The company touted the car in a post on X in early July.
Additionally, investors will get more detail on where Musk's head is at for Tesla, especially following his blockbuster debut of SpaceX, which went public in early June. Chatter is increasing, according to Bloomberg, on whether a merger between Musk's two companies could be in the cards.
As of Tuesday, SpaceX is now included in the Nasdaq 100 Index, ticker QQQ, which tracks 100 of the Nasdaq's most innovative companies, as detailed by the exchange-traded fund. This means mutual funds and indexes that track the QQQ will need to buy SpaceX, potentially pushing billions of dollars of inflows into the shares.
Still, with Tesla shares down over 4% this year, trailing the S&P 500's 10% rise, investors will be listening for any headlines that may present an attractive entry point for the stock heading into its next quarterly report.
Bottom line
While Tesla's core business updates move the stock in either direction, Wall Street is adding another metric on how it values the automaker: SpaceX.
On Tuesday, RBC Capital boosted its price target for Tesla to $500 from $475, citing a potential combination with SpaceX, tied to unconfirmed reports. The higher price level factors in as much as a "30% premium to current trading levels," as reported by TipRanks.
Those interested in starting to invest in Tesla should automatically add SpaceX to their watchlists, as the two may move more in lockstep even if any potential merger remains a wildcard.
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