Tesla (TSLA) shares have dipped below the $400 mark just days before the company reports second-quarter results after the closing bell on July 22. The slide revives a familiar question for investors: is this pullback a chance to build a position ahead of the numbers, or is it wiser to wait until the dust settles?
The delivery figures already point to a robust quarter. Tesla handed over 480,126 vehicles, comfortably beating expectations. Based on a historical average revenue per vehicle of roughly $42,000 to $43,000, automotive revenue is likely to land between $20.1 billion and $20.7 billion — a gain of around 22% from the $16.67 billion recorded in the same period a year earlier. That rebound confirms a simple diagnosis: the delivery slowdown in the first half of 2025 was largely a Model Y refresh problem, not a collapse in demand.
The trouble is, much of that automotive strength already appears priced in. Cars still generate roughly three-quarters of Tesla’s revenue, but the premium valuation has never been about selling vehicles. The story that really matters is the promise of recurring income from full self-driving software, the Optimus humanoid robot-as-a-service, and a future robotaxi fleet. Every earnings call, in essence, serves as a quarterly progress report on those two moonshots.
On Optimus, CEO Elon Musk telegraphed the near-term path during the last call: low-volume production is set to begin around late July or August, accompanied by an unveiling event. If the earnings presentation confirms that timeline and announces a firm date, it will generate excitement — but it would only deliver on a pledge already made. That is hardly a transformative surprise.
The real catalyst lies with Full Self-Driving version 15. Musk has been explicit that a large-scale rollout of unsupervised FSD or robotaxis makes little sense without a major architectural leap in safety, and he has pinned that leap on v15 — a “complete overhaul of the software architecture.” His timeline is “hopefully this year, but certainly by early next year.” In other words, without v15, there is no robotaxi ramp worth the name. The update on v15’s development clock will therefore be a far more critical signal than any Optimus announcement.
That distinction feeds into a wider divide between long-term conviction and short-term betting. Viewed through a founder-led lens, Musk has tethered his enormous personal wealth to Tesla stock and consistently channeled profits back into the autonomous fleet, the Dojo supercomputer, Optimus, and the energy business. For investors who treat Tesla as a decade-long bet, a sub-$400 share price can look like just another boarding call on a famously bumpy ride.
However, deliberately buying a day or two before a single earnings report is a different game entirely. Tesla’s rich valuation already embeds the assumption that the autonomous future arrives more or less on time, leaving very little cushion if the update underwhelms. Musk’s track record of slipping timelines is no secret, and a cautious tone on v15 could test the market’s patience once again.
So the more useful question is not “should I buy before July 22?” but “am I willing to own an expensive, highly volatile stock whose ultimate vision is still unproven, potentially through years of validation?” If the answer is yes, the exact timing of the earnings date matters far less than it seems. If the goal is simply a short-term wager on a quarterly beat, this earnings report might just resemble a coin toss.
