Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Q&A Summary

Q: How does the Optimus fleet scale past Austin and what is the regulatory path?

A: Ashok Elluswamy stated that data from other vehicle platforms helped create the Cybercab, and there is no fundamental reason to limit operations to Austin, with a launch in Dallas planned for next month.

Q: When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?

A: Ashok Elluswamy noted that the software for Cybercabs and Model Y is the same, and they expect to turn on the first customer vehicles for the robotaxi fleet around Q2 next year.

Q: When will the Cybercab be available for customer purchase?

A: Lars Moravy and Elon Musk explained that they aim to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of 2026, though the vehicles will primarily be used for Tesla-owned Transport as a Service.

Q: What are the unit economics for robotaxi miles and Optimus costs?

A: Vaibhav Taneja stated they are not at the $0.30 per mile goal yet but see a path to get there, while Optimus costs are trending toward Cybercab levels.

Q: How do you expect the ramp-up curve to be on the Cybercab line?

A: Vaibhav Taneja and Lars Moravy noted that the Cybercab has 50% fewer parts than other vehicles, making it one of the easiest products to scale.

Q: Are the bottlenecks to robotaxi growth more regulatory or software driven?

A: Ashok Elluswamy explained that scaling is technology driven, with plans to unlock 24/7 operations and higher-speed roads by the end of the year.

Q: Is the plan to price robotaxi rides lower than competitors long term?

A: Vaibhav Taneja and Elon Musk stated that their cost basis is different because they manufacture the car and operate without a driver, and they believe Tesla will eventually account for a majority of passenger miles.

Q: Is the expectation to continue growing unsupervised miles at a double-digit weekly rate?

A: An executive stated they will continue scaling for the foreseeable future and see a clear path to millions of vehicles over the next several months.

Q: What are your thoughts on crowdsourcing training data for Optimus versus the internal Optimus Academy approach?

A: Elon Musk and Ashok Elluswamy stated that crowdsourcing is not the issue, as they need to build 10,000 to 20,000 bots to perform self-play to bootstrap the data.

Q: Where are the design changes happening for Optimus?

A: Elon Musk and an executive noted that the hand is the most challenging hardware area, requiring fine-tuning for durability and dexterity.

Q: What is the strategy for ramping Optimus production?

A: Elon Musk and Vaibhav Taneja explained they are building robots without final hands while simultaneously maturing the supply chain and AI software, with customer deliveries likely toward the end of next year.

Q: Why not use your own maps for FSD instead of third-party ones?

A: Ashok Elluswamy said they are building an AI-based mapping and navigation architecture that will be integrated into the V15 release.

Q: Could the success of FSD lead to competitors creating similar products and deflationary pricing?

A: Vaibhav Taneja and Ashok Elluswamy argued that FSD is a very hard problem and they do not believe competitors can match their technology in the near term.

Q: Will Chinese automakers be able to develop similar FSD products?

A: Vaibhav Taneja stated that no other Chinese OEM has the technology leapfrog that Tesla possesses and they are working diligently with regulators.

Q: Is the FSD attach rate impacting profit per car?

A: Vaibhav Taneja confirmed that FSD significantly impacts profit over the lifetime of the car and they will share more metrics as it scales.

Q: What is the retention rate for FSD subscriptions?

A: Vaibhav Taneja stated they will share more metrics regarding churn rates in the future.

Q: How do you triangulate robotaxi growth into revenue and profitability?

A: Vaibhav Taneja and Elon Musk noted that while it will not move the needle this quarter, it should become a significant part of revenue and profitability in 2027.

Q: How are you thinking about Tesla's role in distributed power and compute?

A: Elon Musk stated it is early days and they will have a better sense of the potential by the end of Q1 or Q2.

Q: How much capital is needed for Terafab and what are the milestones?

A: Elon Musk and Vaibhav Taneja said it will require tens of billions in capital equipment through early 2028 and likely north of $100 billion long term.

Q: How should we think about Cybercab capacity and CapEx flowing through the budget?

A: Elon Musk noted that CapEx is currently lower than anticipated but will become more meaningful next year and reach the tens of billions in 2028.

Q: What is the current production rate at existing factories and do you anticipate building new ones?

A: Lars Moravy stated that factories are operating at record rates and they are building new factories to reach the goal of 5 million vehicles per year by 2030.