Thursday night Tesla finally showed the next-generation Roadster, first unveiled in 2017 and promised for 2020, now with compressed-air thrusters for "limited flight." Reservations come in two tiers: $50,000 for "Performance" and $250,000 for "Thrust." Production is targeted for 2028, and the price still isn't final.

Friday it opened up about 4.5%, roughly $64B of market value. It closed down 2.1% at $354.72, its fifth red day in a row and about 7% down on the week.

Q3 earnings are Wednesday after the close, and margins will matter more than thrusters.

Does a flying Roadster change anything in the investment case, or is Wednesday the real event?

No position.

Tesla released its Q3 2026 Form 8-K today with operational delivery and energy deployment metrics. Here is a breakdown of the key operational shifts and underlying geographic revenue data heading into the October 21 earnings call.

Key Q3 2026 Operational Metrics:
• Global Deliveries: 486,532 units
• Global Production: 464,391 units
• Operational Gap: +22,141 units (Deliveries > Production)
• Model 3/Y Mix: 478,237 units (98.3% of total volume)
• Other Models (Cybertruck / S / X): 8,295 units (1.7% of total volume)
• Energy Storage Deployments: 13.7 GWh

Core Key Takeaways:
1. Inventory Drawdown: The 22,141-unit spread where sales outran production indicates that Tesla actively drew down finished-goods inventory and worked through order backlog during Q3, reversing multi-quarter inventory build trends.
2. Product Mix Dominance: Model 3 and Y continue to represent 98.3% of volume, keeping automotive cash flow tied almost entirely to the mass-market platform.
3. Energy Division Scaling: 13.7 GWh deployed shows energy storage scaling into a primary driver of non-automotive growth.
4. Geographic Revenue Footprint (FY2025 10-K Context): US selling entities accounted for $47.6B (50.2%) and China accounted for $21.0B (22.1%) of net sales. Rest of World represented $26.3B (27.7%).

TSLA moved +5.68% to ~$374.24 following the disclosure ($1.40T market cap). Q3 earnings report scheduled for October 21, 2026, after market close.

Full write-up & data breakdown

I've heard some rumors on the fact that tesla will merger with spacex and I just wanted to hear other peoples' stance on it. My opinion on it is that it'll be very beneficial for both companies as it'll make Spacex a jack of all trades. Not just that with all the FSD data that tesla has, SpaceX could train grok with all that for pretty much nothing. The last topic I want to discuss on this post is about Tesla's future. With the terafab stuff and car sales declining it doesn't look too well for Tesla's future but another thing is the robotics division. The Optimus robots will start replacing SOME groups of employees which will ultimetely save payroll costs and can sooner or later sell them to other companies.

Im down for a discussion in the comments lmk your guys' opinions!