Tesla Q1 2026 earnings: revenue up 16% on vehicle sales, deliveries lag production
Tesla's revenue grew 16% year over year to $22.4 billion, but vehicle deliveries trailed production and inventory piled up.
| Q1 2026 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $0.13 |
| Revenue | $22.39B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Revenue rose 16% from a year earlier to $22.39 billion, driven mainly by higher vehicle sales; net income came in at $477 million for the quarter.
- Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles, up about 6% from a year ago but down from the prior quarter, while it produced over 50,000 more vehicles than it delivered, pushing unsold inventory up to about 27 days’ worth of supply versus 15 days at the end of the previous quarter.
- Automotive revenue climbed 16% to $16.2 billion, while the energy generation and storage business declined 12% to $2.41 billion compared with the same quarter last year.
- The company’s trailing-twelve-month profit margins remain thin — a net margin of about 3.7% and an operating margin of about 4.2% — meaning only a small slice of each sales dollar is turning into profit after costs, even as revenue keeps growing.
- Trailing-twelve-month earnings per share are down about 38% from a year ago, showing that per-share profitability has weakened even as quarterly revenue has grown.
- Tesla generated $1.44 billion in free cash flow (cash left over after running the business and funding investments), providing funds to support its expansion plans.
- Management said 2026 capital spending will run about $5 billion above its earlier plan, with total spending for the year now projected above $25 billion, aimed at expanding factories, building AI computing capacity, and ramping new products.
- CEO Elon Musk shifted much of the discussion toward the Optimus humanoid robot and self-driving technology, calling Optimus potentially “the biggest product ever,” while confirming that Robotaxi service is not expected to contribute meaningful revenue until 2027.
Q1 2026 in context
| Metric | Mar 2026 | Mar 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $22.4B | $19.3B | +15.8% |
| Net income | $477M | $409M | +16.6% |
| Free cash flow | $1.4B | $664M | +117.5% |
| Diluted EPS | $0.13 | $0.12 | +8.3% |
| Gross margin | 21.1% | 16.3% | +4.8 pts |
| Operating margin | 4.2% | 2.1% | +2.1 pts |
| Net margin | 2.1% | 2.1% | +0.0 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Mar 2026 and the quarter ended Mar 2025, as reported to the SEC.
Each company's quarter ending in calendar Q1 '26, 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 $387.51 on Apr 22, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $376.30 on Apr 24, 2026, the first session after it — -2.9% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 23, 2025 | $438.97 | $433.72 | -1.2% |
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 · reputable coverage · earnings call