Wall Street sees Tesla's Q1 earnings as an opportunity for the EV maker to claim its place in the AI era

• Tesla will release first quarter earnings results on Wednesday after the closing bell.
• Wall Street expects revenue and earnings to grow from the year prior.
• Wedbush touts Tesla's AI potential, while Morgan Stanley and BofA are looking for robotaxi updates.

Wall Street is eyeing Tesla's upcoming earnings results as a key moment in the EV maker's AI story.

Tesla will report first-quarter earnings results after the closing bell on Wednesday, with CEO Elon Musk set to deliver updates on the initiatives that have formed the core of the bull case for the stock, namely AI and robotaxis.

Investors will also be on the lookout for clues about the impact of its investment in xAI and any insight into a potential SpaceX merger.

Wall Street expects Tesla's first quarter revenue to come in $22.27 billion, marking a rise from the $19.34 billion in sales seen in the year-ago period.

Consensus earnings estimates sit at $0.25, up from the $0.12 recorded in the first quarter of 2025.

The company already reported weaker-than-expected delivery numbers for the quarter. Tesla delivered 358,023 EVs in the first three months of 2026, a 6% year-over-year jump, but below analysts' expectations of 372,160 vehicles.

Tesla has had a rough start to 2026, with the stock falling around 12% year-to-date, making it the worst-performing Magnificent Seven name this year.

Here is what some of the top analysts on Wall Street have to say about Tesla's coming earnings report.

The bulls and bears are divided on Tesla's place in the AI era, Wedbush says

Wedbush analysts, led by Tesla mega bull Dan Ives, expect AI efforts and the continued robotaxi rollout to be the main event on the earnings call.

"We believe the Street is at a crossroads with Tesla as the bulls and bears debate how quickly the AI era will take shape over the coming year," the note read.

The firm, which has a $600 price target and outperform rating on Tesla stock, anticipates Musk will offer some insight into Tesla's $2 billion xAI investment announced during last quarter's earnings call, and what it means for investors.

Morgan Stanley flags Tesla's road to 10 billion FSD miles

Morgan Stanley analysts say Tesla is nearing what they call a "key autonomy milestone": 10 billion miles driven using Tesla's full self-driving (FSD) tech.

"In a year when capex is set to more than double and FCF is flipping negative, we believe Tesla's ability to demonstrate tangible progress in scaling unsupervised autonomous driving capabilities will be critical in supporting valuation," they wrote.

Elon Musk has also emphasized the 10 billion miles figure as crucial to the company's autonomous driving goals and could offer updates on how close the company is to reaching it.

Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target for Tesla stock.

Bank of America is bullish on the robotaxi opportunity

Bank of America highlighted that Tesla expanded its robotaxi fleet in Dallas and Houston ahead of earnings.

The addition of those cities to Tesla's robotaxi network marks fresh progress toward its autonomous driving ambitions. Competition within the autonomous vehicle space, which Bank of America sees as an over $1 trillion market, has intensified, with Uber signing deals with Lucid and Rivian while Google-owned Waymo expands.

"We maintain our Buy & $460 PO as we see significant embedded opportunity from robotaxi, and believe TSLA is at the early stages of monetization of its autonomy capabilities," they wrote.

The analysts also said there could be an update on Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, and reported affordable EV models.

Jefferies warns earnings may underline "gap between vision and execution"

Jefferies analysts lifted their price target for Tesla stock ahead of the earnings report, but they're far from Tesla bulls.

The firm boosted its price target to $350 from $300 on "higher mid-term growth," but said that the company's "mid-term drivers still in slow mode."

The analysts are watching for updates on Tesla's robotaxi rollout and any insights into a potential SpaceX merger.

"Q1 results will show further widening of the gap between vision and execution and, barring a convincing announcement on robotaxi roll-out, may fuel fuel concern about funding and raise the logic of an eventual merger with SpaceX," the analysts wrote.