
Tesla's quarterly results: what are investors and fans looking for?
Here are the top five issues investors, analysts and Tesla fans are watching closely.
Musk formed , the America Party, earlier this month, after a public feud with President Donald Trump over a tax-cut and spending bill. Three months ago, when he was still allied with Trump, Musk said he was pulling back from working in the president's administration. Founding the party has rekindled worries that Musk will be distracted from business as it faces mounting competition, especially in its key China market, and as he tries to turn Tesla into a robotics and AI company.
Musk said on Sunday that he was back to working seven days a week and sleeping in the office when his small children were away.
Last month, Tesla launched a small trial of its self-driving taxi service in Austin, Texas, with roughly a dozen of its Model Y SUVs and several restrictions, including safety supervisors in front passenger seats. Tesla enthusiasts lauded the efforts, although videos showed some driving mistakes.
Musk has said the service would reach the San Francisco Bay Area "in a month or two," depending on regulatory approvals, but Tesla has not applied for necessary permits to test or deploy driverless vehicles, regulators in California told Reuters this month. Investors will want to know how the expansion can go forward.
When Musk shifted his focus to robotaxis, he cancelled plans to build a new, cheaper EV platform. Tesla had promised to start producing the first of more affordable EV models by the end of June, but the company has not yet confirmed if it has met that target. Investors are keen for an update on those plans. Sources had told Reuters in April that a stripped-down version of the Model Y was likely to be delayed by months.
Analysts have already cut their 2025 delivery estimate for the cheaper car to below 50,000 vehicles, from 63,500 at the start of the year, according to eight of them polled by Visible Alpha.
Tesla rolled out a refreshed version of the Model Y this year, a move investors hoped would recharge flagging sales. Deliveries of the SUV and its Model 3 compact sedan - Tesla's volume drivers - plunged in the second quarter.
While Tesla blamed a January production pause to retool plants, some analysts have said the re-styling - including new front and rear light bars and a touchscreen for back-seat passengers - was not enough to boost demand. Investors will want to know Musk's view of the rollout to date and going forward.
With total deliveries falling 13.5% to 384,122 units in the second quarter, the second straight quarterly decline, revenue is expected to fall 11.2% year-on-year, despite aggressive discounting and low-cost financing.
Sales of regulatory credits - a silent profit engine for Tesla - are set to dry up after recent legislation. Tesla earned $2.8 billion in 2024 from such credits sold to legacy automakers to help them comply with emissions rules. Without them, the company would have reported a loss in the first quarter of this year.
Analysts expect pressure on Tesla and they are already resetting their revenue estimates for the year.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
19 minutes ago
- Reuters
EU's $250 billion-per-year spending on US energy is unrealistic
BRUSSELS/HOUSTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The European Union's pledge to buy $250 billion of U.S. energy supplies per year is unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most U.S. energy exports towards Europe and the EU has little control over the energy its companies import. The U.S. and EU struck a framework trade deal on Sunday, which will impose 15% U.S. tariffs on most EU goods. The deal included a pledge for the EU to spend $250 billion annually on U.S. energy - imports of oil, liquefied natural gas and nuclear technology - for the next three years. Total U.S. energy exports to all buyers worldwide in 2024 amounted to $318 billion, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. Of that, the EU imported a combined $76 billion of U.S. petroleum, LNG and solid fuels such as coal in 2024, according to Reuters' calculations based on Eurostat data. More than tripling those imports was unrealistic, analysts said. Arturo Regalado, senior LNG analyst at Kpler, said the scope of the energy trade envisioned in the deal "exceeds market realities." "U.S. oil flows would need to fully redirect towards the EU to reach the target, or the value of LNG imports from the US would need to increase sixfold," Regalado said. There is strong competition for U.S. energy exports as other countries need the supplies - and have themselves pledged to buy more in trade deals. Japan agreed to a "major expansion of U.S. energy exports" in its U.S. trade deal last week, the White House said in a statement. South Korea has also indicated interest in investing and purchasing fuel from an Alaskan LNG project as it seeks a trade deal. Competition for U.S. energy could drive up benchmark U.S. oil and gas prices and encourage U.S. producers to favour exports over domestic supply. That could make fuel and power costs more expensive, which would be a political and economic headache for U.S. and EU leaders. Neither side has detailed what was included in the energy deal - or whether it covered items such as energy services or parts for power grids and plants. The EU estimates its member countries' plans to expand nuclear energy would require hundreds of billions of euros in investments by 2050. Its nuclear reactor-related imports, however, totalled just 53.3 billion euros in 2024, trade data shows. The energy pledge reflected the EU's analysis of how much U.S. energy supply it could accommodate, a senior EU official said, but that would depend on investments in U.S. oil and LNG infrastructure, European import infrastructure, and shipping capacity. "These figures, again, are not taken out of thin air. So yes, they require investments," said the senior official, who declined to be named. "Yes, it will vary according to the energy sources. But these are figures which are reachable." There was no public commitment to the delivery, the official added, because the EU would not buy the energy - its companies would. Private companies import most of Europe's oil, while a mix of private and state-run companies import gas. The European Commission can aggregate demand for LNG to negotiate better terms, but cannot force companies to buy fuel. That is a commercial decision. "It's just unrealistic," ICIS analysts Andreas Schröder and Ajay Parmar said in written comments to Reuters. "Either Europe pays a super high non-market reflective price for U.S. LNG or it takes way too much LNG volumes, more than it can cope with." The United States is already the EU's top supplier of LNG and oil, shipping 44% of EU LNG needs and 15.4% of its oil in 2024, according to EU data. Raising imports to the target would require a U.S. LNG expansion way beyond what is planned through 2030, said Jacob Mandel, research lead at Aurora Energy Research. "You can add on capacity," Mandel said. "But if you're talking about the scale that would be necessary to meet these targets, the $250 billion, then it's not really feasible." Europe could buy $50 billion more of U.S. LNG annually as supply increases, he said. The EU has said it could import more U.S. energy as its plan advances to end Russian oil and gas imports by 2028. The EU imported around 94 million barrels of Russian oil last year - 3% of the bloc's crude purchases - and 52 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian LNG and gas, according to EU data. For comparison, the EU imported 45 bcm of U.S. LNG last year. Higher EU fuel purchases would, however, run counter to forecasts for EU demand to decline as it shifts to clean energy, analysts said. "There is no major need for the EU to import more oil from the U.S., in fact, its oil demand peaked a number of years ago," Schröder and Parmar said. ($1 = 0.8571 euro)


The Independent
21 minutes ago
- The Independent
Chaos over Alina Habba's status at the NJ attorney's office even has defendants confused
A man in New Jersey has claimed that his upcoming criminal trial would be unconstitutional, while Alina Habba is head of the U.S. Attorney's Office, saying she is 'unlawfully' in that role. An attorney for Julien Giraud Jr., who is facing trial August 4 for drug and firearm-related charges, says the case cannot move forward with Habba in charge because his client has the right to be prosecuted 'only by a duly authorized United States Attorney'. The motion is the first of its kind to challenge Habba's swift re-appointment to U.S. Attorney after her nomination fell apart. On Thursday evening, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi intervened after New Jersey's district court judges attempted to remove Habba from her temporary post in the state earlier in the week. 'Giraud Jr. has a constitutional right to be prosecuted only by a duly authorized United States Attorney. The illegitimacy of Ms. Habba's appointment undermines Giraud Jr.'s fundamental due process rights,' attorney Thomas Mirigliano, wrote in the legal memorandum filed Sunday. Mirigliano is asking the court to either withdraw the indictment against his client or prevent Habba, or any assistant U.S. attorney under her authority, from prosecuting the case. 'I got the idea over the weekend because my trial was imminent and I thought it was an important issue that needed to be litigated,' Mirigliano told POLITICO. Giraud Jr. is facing two charges, possession and intent to distribute cocaine and fentanyl as well as possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. He has pleaded not guilty to both Habba, who served as President Donald Trump 's personal lawyer, was named Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in March, a position that she could only hold for 120 days without Senate confirmation. As her expiration date approached, and with no Senate confirmation hearing in sight, the state's judges took matters into their own hands on July 22 and selected First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Desiree Grace, to replace Habba. But the administration swooped in and carried out a legal maneuver that will ultimately allow Habba to remain. Bondi fired Grace while Trump rescinded Habba's nomination and instead named her Acting U.S. Attorney. Under that statute, Habba can remain in charge of the New Jersey attorney's office for at least 210 days. The Independent has asked the White House for comment. Giraud Jr's motion, initially filed with the federal judge overseeing his case in New Jersey, is being handled by a federal judge in Pennsylvania. Habba represented Trump at his New York fraud trial and New York defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll. Trump lost both cases.


The Independent
21 minutes ago
- The Independent
Republicans now want to rename the JFK Center for the Performing Arts after Trump
A Republican bill has been proposed to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., after Donald Trump. Introduced by Representative Bob Onder, the 'Make Entertainment Great Again Act' cites Trump as a significant cultural figure and patron of the arts. Separately, an amendment to rename the Kennedy Center's Opera House after Melania Trump passed a House Appropriations Committee vote by 33-25. Donald Trump previously replaced board members at the Kennedy Center, stating he would ensure the institution is 'not woke'. John F. Kennedy's grandson, Jack Schlossberg, criticised the renaming efforts, suggesting Trump is 'obsessed with being bigger than JFK'.