Investor's Corner
Tesla Q4 Earnings Summary, Sees Profitability in 2016
Tesla had plenty of good news to announce in its Q4 earnings call today. First and foremost, the company experienced a $179 million positive core operational cash flow in Q4 and $44 million for the year. Despite a $1.5 billion investment into the Gigafactory, Tesla’s 2016 outlook sees the company generating positive net cash flow and achieve non-GAAP profitability for the full year.
Model S
Demand for the Model S remains strong despite record low gasoline prices. Tesla says its customers are more focused on superior performance, technology, safety, lower environmental impact, and style than they are on saving money on fuel costs.
After being jabbed quite hard by Consumer Reports over reliability issues last year, Tesla reports its repair experience for cars built in 2015 was half what it was the prior year and one quarter what it was for cars manufactured in 2012.
Market share of Model S continues to expand into global markets. The company saw a 76% increase in global deliveries in Q4, making it the number one selling luxury sedan in the U.S, outselling comparably priced four-door sedans from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Jaguar, and Porsche.
“Even on our competitors’ home turf and in countries without government incentives to purchase electric vehicles, Model S is winning. For example, in Switzerland, Model S outsold the Mercedes Benz S-Class, the BMW 7- Series, the Porsche Panamera and the Audi A-8 combined for the full year, and also outsold the Mercedes Benz E-Class. In Germany in Q4, Model S outsold the Porsche Panamera. Finally, across all of Europe last year Model S outsold the Audi A8 and A7 combined and the BMW 7-Series and 6-Series combined.” Tesla Q4 Shareholder letter
Model S took share from all incumbent manufacturers to become the #1 selling
comparably priced four-door sedan pic.twitter.com/IIa7wKHPrj— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 10, 2016
Model X
Model X reservations grew by 75% compared to 2015. After deliberately limiting Model X production in the fourth quarter to address quality control issues, the company says it plans to increase production of the Model X to approximately 1,000 units a week in Q2. Tesla began rolling out a test drive program for reservation holders recently and expects the Model X to start hitting the showroom floors this quarter.
Tesla Energy
Tesla Energy news is strongly positive as well. Production has been transferred to the Gigafactory, where manufacture for Powerwall and Powerpack is now up and running. The first residential and commercial installations in the US, Germany, and Australia have been completed.
The energy storage side of the business is already experiencing positive gross margins. The company believes its energy storage customers will become valuable potential new car purchasers as well.
Growth and Production
Tesla anticipates another year with 60 to 80% sales growth, and expects to deliver between 80,000 and 90,000 new cars in 2016. It foresees gross margins approaching 30% and a positive net cash flow from the second quarter onward.
Model 3
Following confirmation by the company that the Model 3 will sell for $35,000, Tesla has set a March 31 date for when it will release more information about the vehicle. It says the car is “on schedule” and the production will begin in late 2017.
We will update you further at the end of the press conference and conference call with analysts later today.
Tesla shares were up 14 percent in after-hours trading after closing at $143.67.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock received a price target update from Pierre Ferragu of Wall Street firm New Street Research, citing the company’s growing lead in self-driving and autonomy.
On Tuesday, Ferragu bumped his price target from $520 to $600, stating that the consensus from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was that Tesla’s lead in autonomy has been sustained, is growing, and sits at a multiple-year lead over its competitors.
CES 2026 validates Tesla’s FSD strategy, but there’s a big lag for rivals: analyst
“The signal from Vegas is loud and clear,” the analyst writes. “The industry isn’t catching up to Tesla; it is actively validating Tesla’s strategy…just with a 12-year lag.”
The note shows that the company’s prowess in vehicle autonomy is being solidified by lagging competitors that claim to have the best method. The only problem is that Tesla’s Vision-based approach, which it adopted back in 2022 with the Model 3 and Model Y initially, has been proven to be more effective than competitors’ approach, which utilizes other technology, such as LiDAR and sensors.
Currently, Tesla shares are sitting at around $433, as the company’s stock price closed at $432.96 on Tuesday afternoon.
Ferragu’s consensus on Tesla shares echoes that of other Wall Street analysts who are bullish on the company’s stock and position within the AI, autonomy, and robotics sector.
Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note in mid-December that he anticipates Tesla having a massive 2026, and could reach a $3 trillion valuation this year, especially with the “AI chapter” taking hold of the narrative at the company.
Ives also said that the big step in the right direction for Tesla will be initiating production of the Cybercab, as well as expanding on the Robotaxi program through the next 12 months:
“…as full-scale volume production begins with the autonomous and robotics roadmap…The company has started to test the all-important Cybercab in Austin over the past few weeks, which is an incremental step towards launching in 2026 with important volume production of Cybercabs starting in April/May, which remains the golden goose in unlocking TSLA’s AI valuation.”
Tesla analyst breaks down delivery report: ‘A step in the right direction’
Tesla has transitioned from an automaker to a full-fledged AI company, and its Robotaxi and Cybercab programs, fueled by the Full Self-Driving suite, are leading the charge moving forward. In 2026, there are major goals the company has outlined. The first is removing Safety Drivers from vehicles in Austin, Texas, one of the areas where it operates a ride-hailing service within the U.S.
Ultimately, Tesla will aim to launch a Level 5 autonomy suite to the public in the coming years.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Q4 delivery numbers are better than they initially look: analyst
The Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Longtime Tesla analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster has shared his insights on Tesla’s Q4 2025 deliveries. As per the analyst, Tesla’s numbers are actually better than they first appear.
Munster shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Normalized December Deliveries
Munster noted that Tesla delivered 418k vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025, slightly below Street expectations of 420k but above the whisper number of 415k. Tesla’s reported 16% year-over-year decline, compared to +7% in September, is largely distorted by the timing of the tax credit expiration, which pulled forward demand.
“Taking a step back, we believe September deliveries pulled forward approximately 55k units that would have otherwise occurred in December or March. For simplicity, we assume the entire pull-forward impacted the December quarter. Under this assumption, September growth would have been down ~5% absent the 55k pull-forward, a Deepwater estimate tied to the credit’s expiration.
“For December deliveries to have declined ~5% year over year would imply total deliveries of roughly 470k. Subtracting the 55k units pulled into September results in an implied December delivery figure of approximately 415k. The reported 418k suggests that, when normalizing for the tax credit timing, quarter-over-quarter growth has been consistently down ~5%. Importantly, this ~5% decline represents an improvement from the ~13% declines seen in both the March and June 2025 quarters.“
Tesla’s United States market share
Munster also estimated that Q4 as a whole might very well show a notable improvement in Tesla’s market share in the United States.
“Over the past couple of years, based on data from Cox Automotive, Tesla has been losing U.S. EV market share, declining to just under 50%. Based on data for October and November, Cox estimates that total U.S. EV sales were down approximately 35%, compared to Tesla’s just reported down 16% for the full quarter. For the first two months of the quarter, Cox reported Tesla market share of roughly a 65% share, up from under 50% in the September quarter.
“While this data excludes December, the quarter as a whole is likely to show a material improvement in Tesla’s U.S. EV market share.“
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