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Tesla Q3 2026 Earnings Tonight: What to Watch at 5:30 p.m. ET

Tesla Canada
Two dark blue Tesla Model S sedans parked outside Tesla's Fremont factory under a large TESLA sign

Tesla reports its third-quarter 2026 results today, Wednesday, October 21, after the market closes, with the live Q&A webcast at 5:30 p.m. Eastern (Toronto time). In this Tesla Q3 2026 earnings preview: Wall Street expects flat revenue of about $28 billion and lower profit per share, so margins, cash flow and any comment on a possible SpaceX merger will matter most.

Tesla Q3 2026 earnings preview: the numbers we already know

Tesla released its delivery figures on October 2. It delivered 486,532 vehicles and produced 464,391 in the quarter, and deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage. Model 3 and Model Y made up 478,237 of those deliveries.

Electrek notes deliveries were down 2.1% from the record Q3 2025, which was boosted by the expiring U.S. tax credit, but well above the roughly 462,000 analysts expected. Storage fell short of the roughly 15.9 GWh forecast.

What Wall Street expects

All figures are in U.S. dollars:

  • Revenue: about $28.06 billion (Electrek, citing Wall Street consensus) to $28.13 billion (Bloomberg consensus via Yahoo Finance), roughly flat with a year ago
  • Adjusted earnings per share: about $0.44 to $0.45, down from $0.50 in Q3 2025
  • Free cash flow: about -$4.51 billion, per Tesla’s own analyst consensus as reported by Yahoo Finance, versus nearly $4 billion a year ago

Tesla has guided to more than $25 billion in capital spending for 2026, much of it for Optimus production lines, AI compute, the Cybercab ramp and the Terafab chip plant it is building with SpaceX.

Five things to watch on the call

  1. Automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits. Electrek says it fell to 16.3% in Q2 from 19.2% in Q1.
  2. Cash burn. Another negative free cash flow quarter would not surprise analysts.
  3. Robotaxi and Cybercab. The top shareholder question asks how the Cybercab fleet scales beyond Austin while NHTSA’s safety review is open. See our story on Austin robotaxi rides running until midnight.
  4. FSD and HW3. Shareholders also asked when unsupervised FSD reaches customer cars and whether HW3 owners will get a free hardware upgrade, a big question for many older Teslas in Canada.
  5. The SpaceX question. On SpaceX’s own earnings call on October 20, Elon Musk confirmed both companies formed special committees to study a merger, but said it should not be assumed. Tesla shares rose 1.8% in extended trading after his comments, Reuters reported.

The Canadian angle

Tesla recently paused Model 3 Premium orders in Canada until March 2027, citing its share of the federal import quota for China-built EVs. Tesla has not said whether it will address Canada on the call.

You can watch live and read the Q3 update at ir.tesla.com. For background on the vote coming up next, see our explainer on the Dec. 3 Tesla shareholder meeting.

Listening in tonight? Trade reactions in real time with 17,000+ Ontario owners in Canada’s busiest Tesla community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teslamodelyand3/. Prefer X? Join our X community, Tesla Model* [Ontario, Canada], too.

Sources