Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJoel SouthSat, June 20, 2026 at 3:00 PM GMT+2 3 min readQuick ReadTSLA beat Q1 EPS estimates with $22.4 billion in revenue, even as Musk warned Optimus and Robotaxi ramps will start very slow.Tesla commits over $25 billion in 2026 CapEx to robotics and autonomy as operating expenses rose 37% on AI R&D.Prediction markets give Optimus a 15% chance of consumer release by year-end 2026 and Robotaxi just 3% odds of a California launch by June.Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.Elon Musk spent much of Tesla's Q1 2026 earnings call doing something he rarely does: lowering expectations. The CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) repeatedly invoked manufacturing physics rather than moonshot timelines, and the centerpiece of his framing was a single line.24/7 Wall St. / Getty Images"Whenever you have an all-new product with an all-new supply chain, and everything is new, its growth curve is always a stretched S-curve." He repeated the idea in different words on the call: "initial production of Cybercab and Semi will be very slow, but then ramping up and going kind of exponential towards the end of the year and certainly next year."For a CEO whose brand is built on aggressive timelines, the tone was conspicuously subdued.The Optimus Reality CheckTSLA Price Target — 24/7 Wall St.Musk laid out what conversion of the Fremont Model S/X line into Optimus production actually requires: "You can't dismantle some gigantic production line overnight. It takes at least a few months to do so. Then you've got to install a new production line... Frankly, if we're able to go from shutting production on one line, dismantling that entire line, reinstalling a whole new line and turning that on in a matter of four months, that is an insanely fast speed."Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.He went further on the unknowns: "it is literally impossible to predict, except that I think it will be quite slow for us as we iron out the 10,000-plus unique items that have to be solved for Optimus to reach volume production."Prediction markets agree. Polymarket assigns just a 15% probability of an Optimus consumer release by year-end 2026, and only 1% by June 30.Robotaxi: Safety Over SpeedThe same tempered tone carried through Robotaxi commentary. "I don't think unsupervised FSD or Robotaxi revenue would be super material this year, but I do think it will be material probably in a significant way next year," Musk said. Polymarket puts a California Robotaxi launch by June 30 at 3% probability.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info