Tesla Q3 2025 earnings: revenue up, profit down as tax-credit rush boosted deliveries
Tesla posted record quarterly revenue driven by a rush of vehicle buyers ahead of the expiring federal EV tax credit, but profit fell year-over-year as costs rose.
| Q3 2025 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $0.39 |
| Revenue | $28.09B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Total revenue reached $28.1 billion, up about 12% from a year earlier, with growth across all three of Tesla’s business lines: vehicles, energy storage, and services.
- Net income fell to about $1.37 billion from $2.19 billion a year earlier, even though revenue grew, because operating expenses rose and vehicle prices were lower on average.
- Vehicle deliveries hit a record 497,099 for the quarter, which management and news coverage linked to buyers rushing to purchase before the U.S. federal EV tax credit expired at the end of September.
- The energy business — batteries for homes, businesses and the grid — was a standout, with revenue up 44% to $3.42 billion and storage deployments nearly doubling to 12.5 gigawatt-hours from 6.9 a year ago.
- Profitability margins stayed thin: trailing-twelve-month gross margin was 18.9% and operating margin 4.2%, reflecting continued pressure from vehicle price cuts and heavier spending on new initiatives.
- Per-share earnings over the trailing twelve months were down about 38% from a year earlier, underscoring the profit pressure even as the company’s top line keeps growing.
- On the earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla is on track to deliver a more affordable vehicle model in the first half of 2026, following the launch of lower-cost ‘standard’ versions of the Model Y and Model 3 in October.
- Musk also said Tesla aims to remove human safety drivers from its Austin robotaxi service this year and expand the service to eight to ten metro areas by the end of 2025.
- Tesla said it expects about $9 billion in capital spending for the full year, with a further increase planned for 2026 to support expansion and AI-related projects including the Optimus robot.
Q3 2025 in context
| Metric | Sep 2025 | Sep 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $28.1B | $25.2B | +11.6% |
| Net income | $1.4B | $2.2B | -36.8% |
| Free cash flow | $4.0B | $2.7B | +45.5% |
| Diluted EPS | $0.39 | $0.62 | -37.1% |
| Gross margin | 18.0% | 19.8% | -1.9 pts |
| Operating margin | 5.8% | 10.8% | -5.0 pts |
| Net margin | 4.9% | 8.6% | -3.7 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Sep 2025 and the quarter ended Sep 2024, as reported to the SEC.
Each company's quarter ending in calendar Q3 '25, as reported to the SEC. A peer that reported no revenue figure for that quarter is left out.
How the stock took it
Tesla, Inc. closed at $438.97 on Oct 22, 2025, the last session before the report, and at $433.72 on Oct 24, 2025, the first session after it — -1.2% across the report.
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · earnings call