The Tesla brand logo can be seen on May 28, 2026 at a location of the car manufacturer in Parsdorf near Munich (Bavaria, Germany).
Matthias Balk | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Tesla reported vehicle deliveries and production levels for the second quarter that far exceeded Wall Street expectations, as Elon Musk’s automaker tries to rebound from consecutive annual declines in auto sales.
Here are the key numbers:
- Total Q2 vehicle deliveries: 480,126
- Total Q2 vehicle production: 451,758
Analysts were expecting around 406,600 deliveries, according to StreetAccount’s consensus. Tesla’s company-compiled consensus published last week was 406,024 deliveries.
Shares of Musk’s EV maker sank about 7.49% on Thursday despite the strong report. The stock had its worst day in almost a year, and has fallen on each of the past three quarterly delivery reports.
In the same period last year, Tesla reported around 384,000 deliveries, and in the first quarter of 2026, the number came in at 358,023.
Thursday’s update showed a 25% year-over-year increase, and 34% increase versus the first quarter in deliveries for Tesla.
Tesla doesn’t break out exact delivery numbers by region or individual model, but the company said its entry-level Model 3 sedan and most popular Model Y SUVs accounted for 467,762, or 97% of its deliveries. Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in its shareholder communications.
Tesla is trying to recover from consecutive annual declines in vehicle sales that were partly caused by a consumer backlash against Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, and by the loss of a U.S. federal tax credit. Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric, endorsements of anti-immigrant extremists in Europe, and his work with the Trump administration to shrink the federal workforce drove away some prospective EV buyers.
Meanwhile, Chinese automakers like BYD, Nio and Xiaomi came to market with an array of more affordable, and high-tech EVs, while Tesla also faced increased competition from South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group and European EV makers including Volkswagen.
To revitalize sales, Tesla started selling lower-cost versions of its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, and more recently made its driver assistance systems, marketed under the brand name Full Self-Driving (Supervised), available in some European markets.
The biggest boon for the company in the quarter may have been soaring gas prices resulting from the war in Iran. European car buyers purchased more Tesla and other EVs in the first half of the year. However, oil prices are now back near where they were trading before the war began in February, in response to a fragile truce between the U.S. and Iran, and diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to a lasting conclusion.
In the U.S., car buyers have pulled back from fully electric vehicles, and are embracing hybrids, according to Dan Hearsch, managing director at AlixPartners.
“We have a huge country, and people live far away from each other compared to Europe where the charging infrastructure is better and people don’t have to drive quite so far,” Hearsch said.
In the second half of the year, inflation, shifting trade policy, the rising cost of chips and other components may pose the biggest challenges to U.S. automakers, he added.
Tesla stock chart.
Musk has directed Tesla to focus on ramping production and sales of its Semi electric trucks, and to start production of its driverless Cybercab. The company is also looking to begin production of its Optimus humanoid robots.
In Tesla’s first quarter investor update, the company said it was “optimizing” its vehicle portfolio, “with an emphasis on vehicles designed for a fully autonomous future” and expected “volume production of both Cybercab and the Tesla Semi this year.”
Tesla said in January that it would stop producing its flagship Model S and X vehicles, and would use their factory lines in Fremont, California to build Optimus units.
In its Energy business, which installs solar photovoltaics and sells battery energy storage systems, Tesla said it deployed 13.5 GWh in the second quarter of 2026, compared to 9.6 Gwh a year ago. Analysts expected 13.3 GWh.
Musk’s SpaceX, which owns xAI, bought $269 million worth of Tesla Megapacks in April, according to its IPO filing. SpaceX is using the Megapacks to reduce xAI’s electricity costs at its power-hungry data centers in and around Memphis, Tennessee.
In the second quarter deliveries report, Tesla did not disclose whether related-party transactions contributed to the strong numbers. Last year, SpaceX spent $131 million purchasing Tesla Cybertrucks. That dollar amount represented a large portion of the 20,237 Cybertrucks Tesla sold in 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Tesla plans to report second-quarter financial results on Wednesday, July 22, after the market’s close.
