Tesla Q3 earnings call: seeking FSD approval in China, Optimus begins early production
Tesla's total revenue for the third quarter of 2026 was $28.046 billion, essentially flat compared with the same period last year, while net profit was $787 million, down 43% year over year. Musk said on the call that the company is making every effort to push for FSD approval in more markets and hopes to obtain EU-wide approval in the first quarter of 2027, while CFO Taneja said the company is working hard to secure FSD approval in China. Tesla has begun early production of Optimus at its Fremont factory in California; Musk said it may take a year or slightly longer to reach a production rate of 20,000 units per week, and the company plans to integrate the AI5 chip into the robot before April next year.
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Tesla's Q3 earnings call disclosed the approval progress for FSD in China and the EU, Optimus production capacity targets, and the AI5 chip timeline, which can be used to observe the pace of its autonomous driving and robotics rollout.
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On October 22 Beijing time, Tesla today released its financial report for the third quarter of 2026. Subsequently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CFO Vaibhav Taneja attended a conference call and answered analysts' questions.
Here are the key points from Tesla's third-quarter financial report and conference call:
— Total revenue was $28.046 billion, essentially flat compared with $28.095 billion in the same period last year; net income attributable to Tesla's common stockholders was $787 million, down 43% from $1.373 billion in the same period last year.
— Musk said Tesla is fully pushing to get FSD approved in more markets. He also hopes FSD can obtain approval across the entire European Union in the first quarter of 2027.
— Musk said demand for Tesla's energy storage products is strong, and the 2027 production capacity of the Megapack large-scale energy storage system has been almost fully booked.
— Musk revealed that Tesla has begun "early production" of Optimus at its Fremont, California factory. "It may take us a year or a little longer to reach a production rate of 20,000 units per week. There are still some design areas that need adjustment."
— Regarding a merger between Tesla and SpaceX, Musk said he would not comment further and again cited yesterday's remark, saying it was like "tap dancing in a minefield."
— Musk said one bottleneck for Optimus is training data. Tesla is working to integrate the AI5 chip into the robot by April next year.
— Taneja said Tesla currently plans capital expenditures of about $20 billion this year. Previously, he had said the company's capital expenditures this year would exceed $25 billion.
— Taneja said Tesla is "working hard" to obtain approval for FSD in China, which is a huge market.
— Musk said the Terafab super chip factory project will require tens of billions of dollars in investment. Over the long term, he expects the project's total investment to "exceed $100 billion."
— As of publication, Tesla shares were down nearly 3% in after-hours trading.