Tesla (TSLA.US) Q3 net profit plunges 43%, vehicle deliveries down 2% year-on-year to 486,500 units

According to Golden Ten Data APP, after the US stock market closed on Wednesday, Tesla (TSLA.US) announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2026. After-hours share price once rose more than 1%. The data showed that the company's revenue for the quarter was $28.046 billion, basically unchanged compared to $28.095 billion in the same period last year; GAAP net profit was $787 million, down 43% year-on-year; diluted earnings per share were $0.22, down 44% year-on-year. Non-GAAP net profit was $1.697 billion, down 4% year-on-year, and adjusted earnings per share were $0.48, also a decrease of 4% year-on-year.

In terms of profitability, Tesla's operating profit for the third quarter was $718 million, a sharp decline of 56% year-on-year, with operating margin dropping from 5.8% in the same period last year to 2.6%. Operating expenses increased by 39% year-on-year to $4.776 billion, mainly due to higher spending on super intelligence and other R&D projects, equity-based compensation, and general administrative expenses. However, the company's overall gross margin improved by 1.6 percentage points year-on-year to 19.6%.

Looking at business segments, automotive business revenue was $20.560 billion, down 3% year-on-year; energy generation and storage business revenue was $2.881 billion, down 16% year-on-year, partly affected by tariff-related customer refunds; services and other business revenue grew 33% year-on-year to $4.605 billion.

In the third quarter, Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles, a 2% decrease year-on-year, while production reached 464,391 vehicles, up 4% year-on-year. Deployment of energy storage products reached 13.7 GWh, up 10% year-on-year. The number of active subscriptions for Full Self-Driving (FSD) reached 1.74 million, up 67% year-on-year.

Regarding the autonomous driving business, Tesla stated that Cybercab began offering Robotaxi ride services in Austin, USA, on September 3. By the end of the quarter, cumulative Robotaxi miles driven without supervision had nearly reached 2 million miles, an approximately eight-fold increase over the last quarter.

On the cash flow side, the company's operating cash flow for the third quarter was $6.263 billion, while free cash flow was $1.531 billion, a 62% year-on-year decline. By the end of the quarter, the total cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments reached $45.447 billion, an increase of about $1.9 billion from the previous quarter.

Looking ahead, Tesla said it would continue to advance Cybercab, Optimus humanoid robot, and energy storage business expansion, and plans to increase super intelligence training computing power to 400 MW by the end of 2026. The company expects that future hardware business profits will gradually receive support from the growth of profits from super intelligence, software, and fleet operations businesses.