Tesla quarter: mixed signal

Tesla told investors on April 22 that it will spend about $25 billion in 2026 even as first-quarter revenue came in below Wall Street forecasts. (techcrunch.com) The company reported first-quarter revenue of about $22.39 billion, up 16% from a year earlier, but below the roughly $22.6 billion analysts expected, according to Reuters as cited by Yahoo Finance. Net income rose to $477 million from $409 million, and free cash flow reached $1.44 billion. (finance.yahoo.com) Tesla built 408,386 vehicles in the quarter and delivered 358,023, leaving a gap of more than 50,000 units. That pushed global vehicle inventory to 27 days of supply, up from 15 days at the end of the fourth quarter. (finance.yahoo.com) Capital spending is the money a company uses for factories, equipment, data centers, and other long-lived assets rather than daily operating costs. Tesla had said in January that 2026 capex would top $20 billion; on April 22 it raised that plan to $25 billion, versus $8.5 billion in 2025, $11.3 billion in 2024, and $8.9 billion in 2023. (techcrunch.com) That spending push is aimed at compute infrastructure and data centers, manufacturing expansion, and research and development lines tied to Tesla’s artificial intelligence, robotaxi, and robotics plans. TechCrunch reported Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said the heavier spending means Tesla expects negative free cash flow for the rest of 2026. (techcrunch.com) The quarter still leaned on Tesla’s core car business and software add-ons. Automotive revenue rose to $16.2 billion, and active Full Self-Driving subscriptions reached 1.28 million, up 51% from a year earlier. (techcrunch.com) Energy was softer. Yahoo Finance reported energy generation and storage revenue fell 12% year over year to $2.41 billion, while storage deployments were 8.8 gigawatt-hours, down from 14.2 gigawatt-hours in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 10.4 gigawatt-hours a year earlier. (finance.yahoo.com) Tesla used the same update to point investors toward newer businesses. The company said paid robotaxi miles nearly doubled from the prior quarter, and Yahoo Finance reported unsupervised robotaxi service went live in Dallas and Houston in April, adding to Austin. (finance.yahoo.com) The result is a split picture: more profit, more cash, and a much bigger build-out plan, alongside slower sell-through in vehicles. Tesla’s April 22 quarter showed a company still funding a larger industrial and computing footprint while its main car business carries more inventory than it did three months earlier. (techcrunch.com)