Dive Brief:
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Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter of 2026, a 25% year-over-year increase, making it the best Q2 in company history. It included 12,384 units of “other models,” such as remaining examples of the now-discontinued Model S sedan and Model X SUV.
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Revenue was at a record $28.2 billion, up 26% YoY, and Tesla claims to have generated more than $100 billion in revenue on a trailing 12-month basis for the first time. Yet profit lagged and the company reported a negative free cash flow for the first time in many quarters.
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In a quarterly call with investors directly following the financial details, Tesla justified its massive capital expenditure on its Robotaxi program and self-driving technology, the ramp-up of its Cybercab self-driving vehicle, and the potential of its Optimus humanoid robots, along with investments in AI chips and solar.
Dive Insight:
Although its automotive gross margin collapsed somewhat to 16.3%, Tesla reported near-record revenues from automotive sales — about $20.5 billion — with quarterly revenue topping $28.2 billion when including energy generation and storage, plus services.
Despite the higher revenues, Tesla faced much higher expenses as it ramped up Cybercab production in Texas, expanded its Robotaxi service and did preliminary work toward Optimus production on what used to be the Model S/X assembly line in Fremont, California.
Tesla’s negative $1.1 billion free cash flow and $5.8 billion capital expenditure were signals that Tesla has been spending big beyond cars and batteries and charging — on AI and chips. This is part of the more than $25 billion in capital spend Tesla confirmed for the year, which amounts to more than triple the amount spent in 2025.
“This is a massive capex year, but I’m confident that all the things that we are investing in will yield incredible returns,” said CEO Elon Musk.
Musk noted that some of these investments are already ramping up, like a lithium refinery and cathode refinery to support battery production. He said the company is also planning to scale up solar cells and panel production but didn’t give further details or a timeline.
Tesla noted in its Q2 investor deck that it’s now producing more than 40 GWh of 4680 cells in Texas, on an installed annual capacity, plus an early ramp of 7 GWh. It also confirmed the addition of more than 2,400 Supercharging stalls in the quarter, amounting to 17% network growth year over year.
Angling for a payoff on self-driving, robots
Meanwhile, Tesla continued to present an argument that it can scale its self-driving services faster and cheaper than other companies because of its approach. The Robotaxi program launched last June, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, has now driven more than 380,000 miles with unsupervised robotaxis across six cities and two states with “zero notable incidents.”
“Any reports have been of other actors impacting us when we were stationary,” said Elluswamy on the call.
“Historically the so-called experts have always claimed that you need lidars, radars, HD maps, and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely,” touted Elluswamy. “Here we show that much is not true. You can have safe, comfortable and affordable autonomy with just cameras.”
Musk noted that Tesla is scaling up at more than 10% a week in terms of miles driven. “Our goals are very ambitious for Robotaxi, but we do need to be cautious about causing any accidents or causing any harm to anyone.”
The company says it has 1.48 million active subscriptions to Full Self-Driving, up 56% year over year and up 16% over the previous quarter.
Further, Tesla says a higher rate of customers than before are opting for FSD at the time of vehicle purchase. Musk reported a very high take rate for FSD. “They’re coming into our stores in the U.S. and they want the full self-driving and with whatever car it comes with, essentially,” he said.
Musk again touted the potential of Optimus robots and said he hopes to announce the location for the chip-focused Terafab facility soon. Tesla has already placed equipment orders for a development fab facility in Austin that will allow it to have a very fast iterative cycle in trying new chip designs that might be especially useful for the Optimus project.
“This is really going to be super-helpful as we try some exciting, adventurous, high-risk, high-payoff bets on AI chips,” he said.
