Tesla is scheduled to report its second-quarter 2026 financial results after the bell on Wednesday, July 22, and its CEO Elon Musk will face questions from the company’s investors for about an hour.
The earnings call comes as Tesla has been working to eat into a glut of unsold EVs it was sitting on at the start of the year. Taking advantage of a slight uptick in EV interest that became apparent amid rising gas prices, Tesla sold 28,368 more electric cars than it produced in the second quarter of 2026.
The nation’s biggest electric car seller reported delivery of 480,126 EVs globally in the spring of 2026, according to a report released by the company on July 2. But it said it produced 451,758 of those cars in the second quarter of 2026.
The difference between Tesla’s sales and production levels allowed it to cut into a 50,363-vehicle gap the company reported having in the first quarter of 2026, when Tesla said it produced 408,386 electric cars and sold 358,023.
For all of 2025, Tesla said it produced 1,654,667 EVs and sold 1,636,129, a gap of 18,538 units for the past year.
Analysts have predicted Tesla will report about $27.6 billion in revenue and an adjusted earnings per share of $0.55, according to a summary of estimates from sell-side analysts released by the company ahead of the call.
With that in mind, the USA TODAY Cars team took a look at questions that have been submitted anonymously online by Tesla investors ahead of the call to get a sense of what topics are on their minds as Musk prepares to speak to them publicly on Wednesday.
Musk told investors on his company’s last earnings call on April 22 that Tesla is planning to expand its Robotaxi service to a “dozen or so states” by the end of the year. Tesla has also said on its website that Cybercab will be a “purpose-built fully autonomous vehicle, will offer rides in your area in the future.”
Musk has said the robotaxi will be a big part in his company’s “overall shift to an autonomous future.”
Several Tesla investors submitted questions about both.
“What are the main constraints to expanding Robotaxi operations faster, and how do you see that lining up with Cybercab production,” an anonymous retail investor asked.
“Tesla has missed short term guidance on robotaxi 3 earnings reports in a row, from 50% coverage of USA by end of 2025 to most recently 7 new cities in 1H26,” another anonymous retail investor asked. “What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short term goals that they’ve set for themselves?”
Musk has predicted its Optimus robot will soon be his company’s most important product.
Musk said on a Tesla’s last call with investors on April 22 that the Austin-based company is prioritizing “actually releasing Optimus, but (also) increasing our internal production for testing, but then probably have Optimus be useful somewhere outside of Tesla next year.”
Several investors submitted questions asking for updates on that process.
“What’s the current status of Optimus Gen 3 production ramp, initial deployment in factories, and external sales timeline/volume for 2027?” an anonymous retail investor asked. “What tasks can we expect the Optimus to perform by end of 2027?”
Musk has been touting the spring launch of its new Terafab chipmaking factory, which he has said is pivotal to the company’s future.
Investors are wondering how the Terafab will interact with Musk’s SpaceX, an aerospace company that is separate from Tesla.
“Previously, you’ve said Tesla would lead the R&D while SpaceX would lead production for Terafab,” an anonymous institutional investor asked. “Can you provide an update on how that division of responsibilities is evolving, and any additional clarity on the expected capital contributions from Tesla and SpaceX?”
The possibility of Tesla either merging with another company or acquiring one is on the mind of several of the company’s investors.
“To reward long term Tesla retail shareholders for their loyalty, can you commit to achieving at least half of the goals outlined in your 2025 compensation plan before considering any offers to acquire or merge Tesla?” an anonymous retail investor asked.
“Will SpaceX merge with Tesla?” another anonymous retail investor asked directly.
Musk warned during Tesla’s last call with investors that owners of the company’s vehicles whose cars operate on its 2019 Hardware 3 system might have to trade in their vehicles to experience the company’s unsupervised full self-driving mode.
“Unfortunately, Hardware 3 – I wish it were otherwise, but Hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD,” Musk said on the call. “We did think at one point it would have that, but relative to Hardware 4, it has only 1/8 of the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4. And memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD.”
Several investors submitted questions asking for updates.
“When can we expect unsupervised FSD with point-to-point summon capability?” an anonymous retail investor asked.
“Elon confirmed HW3 cannot achieve Unsupervised FSD,” another anonymous retail investor asked. “What is the plan for owners who paid for FSD—free hardware upgrades, transfers, or refunds—what is the timeline, and what cost has Tesla accrued for this?