Tesla reports earnings on Wednesday, but does it even matter? The newsflow has been dire for more than a year, with Tesla badly missing estimates in three of the past four quarters, yet the stock is up 30 per cent more than that period.

Yes, shares are down in 2025 and well off their December high, but the overall stock performance suggests investors aren’t as concerned as they might be by dire sales figures in Europe and beyond.

With Tesla, the investment case keeps shifting. A few years ago, it was around scaling to 10 million cars a year. Now, says Deepwater’s Gene Munster, investors would settle for two million (and 1.7 million in 2025), if autonomy shows signs of life.

He points to modest goals for 2025: expanding robotaxi testing in Austin, growing the fleet from 15 to a few hundred, and launching in a second city.

Meanwhile, expect Elon Musk to talk around Tesla potentially investing in his AI firm xAI, or billions of humanoid robots, or perhaps colonising Mars via a self-driving Cybertruck. Just don’t expect the earnings call to dwell on actual earnings.