Should You Buy Tesla Stock Before Earnings on July 22?

You can buy Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock now, in the next trading session, or after quarterly earnings results are released on Wednesday, July 22. The main difference comes down to whether you think there's likely to be a catalyst in the results or presentations that could drive the stock higher after the results are announced.

Tesla's electric vehicle deliveries are growing again

Tesla releases its delivery numbers at the start of each quarter, and as investors already know, it blew past expectations with 480,126 electric vehicle (EV) deliveries. Automotive revenue still makes up roughly three-quarters of Tesla's revenue, and based on historical numbers, Tesla's average revenue per unit (ARPU) for EVs is likely in the $42,000 to $43,000 range. Therefore, automotive revenue will probably be in the $20.1 billion to $20.7 billion range.

The midpoint of the range implies a 22% increase on the $16.67 billion reported in the same quarter of 2025. Whichever way you look at it, Tesla is growing its EV deliveries again, which helps confirm that the slowdown in the first half of 2025 really did come down to the Model Y refresh.

What investors need to look out for

That said, the key to the investment case is Tesla's future stream of recurring income from full self-driving (FSD) software, Optimus robot-as-a-service revenue, and robotaxi revenue from its own fleet or a third-party robotaxi platform fee.

Consequently, every earnings presentation and earnings call is usually viewed as a kind of report card on the long-term development of Robotaxi and Optimus, in the context of publicly available developments in the quarter. Based on Tesla's last earnings call, it's hard to see the company saying anything revolutionary during the upcoming one.

Optimus and robotaxi

On Optimus, CEO Elon Musk said low-volume production would begin in the "late July/August" time frame, with the unveiling event taking place around then. Clearly, there's potential for Tesla to make a splash by announcing this, but it would merely confirm what management has already said.

Turning to robotaxis, while it's exciting to monitor the rollout, the reality is that an increase of a few robotaxis here or there, or an additional city (Miami was added in July), won't make a marginal difference to what really matters.

On the last earnings call, Musk said:

"It's not going to make sense for us to deploy unsupervised FSD or Robotaxi large scale when we know that there are major architectural improvements to the software that can improve safety."

Those improvements will come with the release of v15 FSD, which will be a "complete overhaul of the software architecture" and will take safety to "another level." He also noted that v15 would "hopefully" be available this year, "but certainly by early next year."

What to expect from Tesla's earnings presentations

We pretty much know the key numbers based on the delivery data. On Optimus, confirmation of production starting/growing and an unveiling announcement would be good. However, the key question is the timeline for v15 development, because there won't be a robotaxi ramp without it.

All told, while Tesla remains an attractive stock for long-term investors, it's hard to see the company making any game-changing announcements on Optimus or robotaxi/v15 during the upcoming earnings presentations. In other words, if you like the stock, there's no need to rush to buy it before the earnings report.

Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.