- Tesla reported earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday.
- The EV maker missed Wall Street’s estimates, reporting earnings per share of $0.73 and $25.7 billion in revenue.
- Tesla shares rose as Elon Musk announced unsupervised full-self-driving rides are expected in June in Austin.
Tesla reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday after the closing bell, delivering results that missed Wall Street’s expectations.
Earnings per share were $0.73 compared to estimates of $0.75, while revenue came in at $25.7 billion versus expectations for $27.2 billion.
The company’s energy business also saw strong growth, which analysts highlighted as a bright spot in the earnings report.
Tesla’s stock rose over 3% in volatile after-hours trading following the results after declining by more than 2% in Wednesday’s session.
Wall Street analysts had been bullish headed into the results, with excitement growing for the EV maker’s AI inroads.
After Musk said in October that Tesla’s vehicle sales growth could reach 20-30% in 2025, Tesla appeared to offer more measured guidance in its Q4 earnings release, saying that it expected a return to growth in the segment this year.
“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025,” Tesla said. “The rate of growth will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment.”
Tesla, which saw its first year-over-year decline in vehicle sales in 2024, said that “affordability remains top of mind for customers.”
The company’s cost of goods sold per vehicle hit a record low of under $35,000. The company said it was largely driven by improvements in raw material costs.
Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja also said that tariffs under the Trump administration were “pretty likely” and, if implemented, were expected to impact the business and its profitability.
“Over the years, we’ve tried to localize our supply chain in every market, but we are still very reliant on parts from across the world for all our businesses,” the CFO said.
Musk says robotaxi rides begin in June
Perhaps the biggest news came during Tesla’s earnings call with analysts, where Musk announced that paid rides for its unsupervised full-self-driving robotaxi service were expected to launch in June in Austin.
Musk said the paid rides would be operated initially by Tesla’s fleet as the company was dipping its “toe in the water gently at first” and observing any potential issues with public safety top of mind.
The service is expected to launch in California by the end of the year, and “everywhere in North America next year,” he added. Tesla said owners can expect to be able to add their personal cars to the robotaxi fleet sometime next year.
While investors were looking for any update on Tesla’s promised lower-cost vehicles, the company didn’t make any major announcements. It confirmed that production on new products, including lower-cost models, was expected to begin in the first half of the year, echoing its previous statements.
Musk did give updates to a product line that he says is vital to Tesla’s future valuation: the Optimus humanoid robot. Musk said there’s “uncertainty on the exact timing” with Optimus.
“It’s not like a train arriving at the station,” Musk says. “For Optimus, we are designing the train and the station in real time, while also building the tracks.”
The Tesla CEO said the robot’s design was not locked and his “very rough guess” was that Tesla would start delivering Optimus robots to other companies in the second half of next year.
Musk and Tesla’s CFO fielded questions from retail shareholders and analysts during a call following the earnings report — you can catch up on what was discussed below.