Tesla dips ahead of earnings as investors eye margins update, deliveries guidance

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) was down 1% in afternoon trading on Tuesday as investors prepared for the company’s Q3 earnings report on Wednesday after the closing bell.

As for Q3 numbers, analysts expect the EV maker to post revenue of $25.7 billion and EPS of $0.60. The operating margin line will be closely watched after Tesla (TSLA) saw a sequential improvement in Q2 to 6.3%. The consensus estimate for Q3 is 8.0%, which would be an improvement from last year’s mark of 7.7%.

Elon Musk’s commentary on the current quarter could be critical, as analysts forecast about 496,000 deliveries for the quarter. Tesla (TSLA) would have to deliver about 515,000 vehicles in Q4 to pull the 2024 total above last year’s level. The consensus estimate for 2025 deliveries is 2 million vehicles.

On the conference call, Elon Musk may once again skip over details about the Model 2 after omitting mention of it during the robotaxi event on October 14. “My sense is that the car is still on the roadmap for some time late in 2025, but the company decided not to discuss it, as it would have triggered the Osborne Effect, causing Model 3 buyers to hold off,” highlighted Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster. The Osborne effect referenced by Munster is a social phenomenon where the premature announcement of a future product negatively impacts the sales of a company’s current product. On the robotaxi front, Tesla (TSLA) is aiming for a CyberCab introduction by 2027 at a $30,000 price point.

On Seeking Alpha, analyst Brian Gilmartin said investor expectations are low for the Tesla (TSLA) Q3 earnings. Gilmartin has a Hold rating on TSLA, with investors’ sentiment on the EV stock low. “Trading at 100x EPS today, and 60x cash flow, the few positive developments seem to have been overwhelmed with the stagnant robocar division and the delayed rollout of the lower-end model, but Tesla has much easier compares ahead,” he observed.