benedek / Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Tesla overall has faced demand issues for a while, as falling EV sales in the U.S. and China have combined with\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s deteriorating personal brand.<\/p>\n Tesla\u2019s annual revenue declined in 2025 for the first time ever, as deliveries also fell for the second consecutive year. Tesla says it is much more than a car company, and that its future lies in artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.<\/p>\n But as much as Tesla likes to say it is\u00a0not just a car company, more than 70% of its revenue ($69.5 billion in 2025) comes from automotive sales, which includes leasing, regulatory credits, and vehicle sales.<\/p>\n Service revenue from its vehicles (including supercharging, vehicle insurance, and repairs) totaled another $12.7 billion.<\/p>\n Auto sales already aren\u2019t a high-margin business, and its automotive gross margin (excluding regulatory credits) actually dipped into the red for the first time in 2025, according to\u00a0Reuters.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0first quarter this year, Tesla\u2019s Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 341,893 deliveries, while the \u201cother models,\u201d like\u00a0the Model S and Model X (which will officially\u00a0end production forever\u00a0later this year) and the Cybertruck, accounted for the remaining 16,000+ deliveries.<\/p>\n Tesla reported first-quarter production of 408,386 vehicles and deliveries of 358,023, well short of analyst expectations of 370,000 and its\u00a0internal consensus\u00a0estimate of 365,000.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t all bad news: deliveries actually improved 6% year over year, but the increase is somewhat skewed since 2025\u2019s Q1 total was 13% lower than 2024\u2019s. So the company\u2019s comps were favorable.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Tesla indicated it was pulling the plug on the Model S and Model X and would replace that production capacity with Optimus humanoid robots as part of the company\u2019s plan to build 1 million of them per year.<\/p>\n That plan may worry investors, since there is currently no discernible market for humanoid robots, and selling 10,000 of them in a year would be impressive. But the vehicle models the company is getting rid of haven\u2019t sold, either, so that it may be a wash in the end.<\/p>\n However, analysts at BNP Paribas aren\u2019t taking this Tesla experiment lightly, since the company is also spending heavily to make it happen.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven Tesla\u2019s sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW\u00a0solar\u00a0capacity, the \u2018stakes\u2019 of\u00a0TSLA\u2019s demonstrated robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher,\u201d analysts said\u00a0in a recent note.<\/p>\n According to BNP, the other models that combined for 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from\u00a0artificially inflated demand, so, once again, moving off of them makes sense. Still, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it\u2019s time for Tesla to \u201cput up or shut up\u201d in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cA critical factor for this year is the Co.\u2019s progress rate in its active Robotaxi fleet, which is climbing yet still limited to just two cities,” BNPP analysts said. “The core catalysts for TSLA center on its ability to show meaningful progress toward its\u00a0AI-defined future, inclusive of Robotaxi fleet expansion (targeting 7 new cities in 1H26) and commercialized production of Optimus by year-end.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: Tesla stock shaky after new model denial<\/strong><\/p>\n #Tesla #change #fans #hate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coming off a year where the company posted its first-ever annual revenue loss, 2026 was always going to be pivotal for Tesla. While CEO Elon Musk told investors that the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246],"tags":[1831,1971,4915,2723],"class_list":["post-2871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-popular","tag-change","tag-fans","tag-hate","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/.image\/NDA6MDAwMDAwMDAzMDQ1NzA4\/photo-3045708.jpg?profile=rss\")
Tesla has had a rocky 2026 start after dismal 2025 deliveries<\/h2>\n
Stakes for Tesla \u201ccould not be higher,\u201d analysts say<\/h2>\n