Tesla on Wednesday highlighted progress toward launching production of its long-delayed Tesla Semi truck as a key operational priority, as the company’s profit plummeted 46% to $3.8 billion in 2025, marking a second consecutive year of declining profitability.
Austin, Texas-based Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) released its fourth-quarter earnings and held a conference call with analysts after the market closed on Wednesday.
Tesla officials told investors that preparations are underway to begin Semi manufacturing in early 2026 as part of a broader push into commercial and industrial markets.
“At the moment, we’re expecting [Tesla] CAPEX to be in excess of $20 billion. We’ll be paying for six factories, namely the refinery, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries factories, Cybercab, Semi, a new megafactory, the Optimus factory.On top of it, we’ll also be spending money for building our AI compute infrastructure and we’ll continue investing in our existing factories to build more capacity,” Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja said.
In its fourth-quarter shareholder update, Tesla said tooling for the Tesla Semi is in place at its Nevada operations and that North American factories are being readied for production ramps of both the Semi and its autonomous Cybercab platform beginning in the first half of 2026.
Tesla pitched the Semi as a truck that would have a range of up to 500 miles fully charged, with a load capacity of 81,000 pounds.
The Semi was originally priced in 2017 at $150,000 for a 300-mile range version and $180,000 for the 500-mile version.
Tesla eventually unveiled the Semi in December 2022 but has delayed mass production of the electric tractor several times over the past three years.
About 200 Semi trucks have been delivered to clients such as PepsiCo.
The Semi update came as Tesla reported fourth-quarter results showing continued investment in heavy-duty vehicle and battery infrastructure, even as overall vehicle deliveries declined year over year.
According to Tesla’s fourth-quarter results, the company had adjusted earnings per share of $0.50 in the fourth quarter. The adjusted EPS of $0.50 exceeded analyst expectations, which were in the range of $0.44 to $0.46 per share.
Total revenue for the quarter came in at $24.9 billion, while net income was reported at $840 million.
For full-year 2025, Tesla reported adjusted EPS of $1.66 per share. Total revenue reached $94.83 billion, including $69.53 billion from automotive operations and $12.78 billion from the company’s energy generation and storage business.
Tesla sold 1.65 million electric vehicles in 2025, a 7% annual decrease compared to 2024 when the company sold 1.77 million cars.
| Tesla | Q4/25 | Q4/24 | Y/Y % Change |
| Total revenue | $24.9B | $28.095B | (3%) |
| Automotive revenue | $17.693B | $21.205B | (11%) |
| Number of vehicles built | 434,358 | 447,450 | (5%) |
| Number of vehicles delivered | 418,227 | 497,099 | (16%) |
| Adjusted earnings per share | $0.50 | $0.60 | (17%) |
