Tesla does not report profit per car. Dividing its automotive gross profit by deliveries gives about $7,555 per vehicle in 2025 (calculated: total automotive revenue $69.5B minus automotive cost of revenues $57.2B, divided by 1,636,129 deliveries), against about $8,863 in 2023. This includes regulatory credits and leasing.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Key figures, at a glance
Automotive gross profit per vehicle delivered (calculated)
Tesla’s profit margin per car in 2023 was $8,279, compared to $9580 in 2022, over $6000 in 2021, and over $1700 in 2020.
As Tesla was working toward mass manufacturing in 2020, the company’s profitability per car increased massively between 2020 and 2023, though in an attempt to gain market shares, it decreased in 2023 compared to 2022.
Key numbersAs stated in this article
$8,279,Tesla's profit margin per car in 2023 was $8,279, compared to $9580 in 2022, over $6000 in 2021, and overโฆThis article
20.6%Elon Musk is the top individual investor, with a 20.6% stake in the company.This article
1.5%Musk is followed by Lawrence Ellison (founder of Oracle), with a 1.5% company stake.This article
6.9%Other institutional investors and mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6.9%), andBlackrock (5.6%).This article
In one lineTesla's profit margin per car in 2023 was $8,279, compared to $9580 in 2022, over $6000 in 2021, and over $1700 in 2020.
FourWeekMBABusiness EngineerAt a glance
Tesla's profit margin per car in 2023 was $8,279, compared to $9580 in 2022, over $6000 in 2021, and over $1700 in 2020.
Layout refreshed 6 October 2026. The article text below is unchanged.
Why it mattersFrom the article
As Tesla was working toward mass manufacturing in 2020, the company's profitability per car increased massively between 2020 and 2023, though in an attempt to gain market shares, it decreased in 2023 compared to 2022.
Credits were $1.99B in 2025: 46% of operating income. Source: Tesla Form 10-K for 2025 (SEC EDGAR). Shares calculated. Analysis by The Business Engineer.Tesla delivered 487K vehicles in Q3 2026, -2% on a year earlier. Source: Tesla quarterly production and deliveries releases (Form 8-K, SEC EDGAR). Analysis by The Business Engineer.
The Business Engineer view: an estimate, labelled as one
Per-car profit is our calculation, not a Tesla disclosure, and the method matters: including regulatory credits ($1.99B in 2025) adds about $1,218 per car (Tesla 2025 10-K). Earlier figures on this page used a different method.
By 2024, most of Tesla’s shares are still owned by Elon Musk, among the company’s co-founders and the CEO. Elon Musk is the top individual investor, with a 20.6% stake in the company. Musk is followed by Lawrence Ellison (founder of Oracle), with a 1.5% company stake. Ellison used to sit on Tesla’s board of directors. And Antonio Gracias, among the company’s first investors, has over 1.6 million shares. Other institutional investors and mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6.9%), andBlackrock (5.6%).
Tesla is vertically integrated. Therefore, the company runs and operates the Tesla’s plants where cars are manufactured and the Gigafactory which produces the battery packs and stationary storage systems for its electric vehicles, which are sold via direct channels like the Tesla online store and the Tesla physical stores.
In 2023, Tesla generated $96.77 Billion in revenues. Tesla’s business model primarily relies on automotive sales, $78.5 billion (over 81% of the total revenues); services/others followed with over $8 billion; energy generation and storage generated over $6 billion in revenues.
Automotive sales are the most critical segment for Tesla, with over $82.4 billion in revenue from automotive parts; most of the gross profits come from automotive sales, with over $16 billion in gross profits, or a 19.4 % gross margin. However, the “energy platform” (generation & storage) is contributing more and more to it. With revenue of $6 billion, a gross profit of over a billion dollars, and gross margins of 18.9%, this might become a critical component of the business model, thus changing its whole strategy.
Tesla didn’t have an official advertising budget until 2023, to spend on advertising, as it has almost been null over the years. Indeed, Tesla leveraged a combination of Elon Musk’s ability to generate significant media coverage and build a product that sold via word of mouth and directly to consumers.
Tesla was profitable in 2023, with a net profit of $14.99B, compared to $12.55 billion in 2022. Tesla has been profitable since 2020. Indeed, Tesla generated $862 million in net profits in 2020. It will further generate $5.6 billion in net profits in 2021.
Telsa’s profit margins moved from negative 3.15% in 2019 to over 15% in 2022. As Tesla scaled up manufacturing and improved its economies of scale (with new facilities) and scope, the company became extremely profitable by 2022.
Tesla’s profit margin per car in 2023 was $8,279, compared to $9580 in 2022, over $6000 in 2021, and over $1700 in 2020. As Tesla was working toward mass manufacturing in 2020, the company’s profitability per car increased massively between 2020 and 2023, though in an attempt to gain market shares, it decreased in 2023 compared to 2022.
Tesla R&D’s costs have doubled in absolute number, from almost $1.5 billion in 2020 to nearly $4 billion in 2024. Yet they have decreased as a percentage of revenue, from 5% in 2020 to 4% in 2022 and 2023. These R&D expenses primarily comprise costs associated with personnel for teams in engineering and research, manufacturing engineering and manufacturing test organizations, prototyping expenses, contracts, and professional services.
In the peak of 2020 and 2021, Tesla reached a market cap revenue multiple of 21x and 18x, respectively. This means that Tesla was valued at 21X over its revenues in 2020 and 18X over its revenue in 2021. By the end of 2022, this multiple decreased to 4.7X. And by February 2024 the multiple increased to 6X.
Elon Musk, seen as one of the most visionary tech entrepreneurs from the Silicon Valley scene, started his “career” as an entrepreneur at an early age. After selling his first startup, Zip2, in 1999, he made $22 million, which he used to found X.com, which would later become PayPal, and sell for over a billion to eBay (Musk made $180 million from the deal). He founded other companies like Tesla (he didn’t start it but became a major investor in the early years) and SpaceX. Tesla started as an electric sports car niche player, eventually turned into a mass manufacturing electric car maker.
Founded in 2003 by Eberhard and Tarpenning, eventually, the initial co-founders left the company, and by 2004, Musk first became the main investor. After that, by 2008, he took over as CEO of the company. Tesla would go through many near-death experiences until 2018. And yet, by 2021, Tesla will become a trillion-dollar company.
Tesla is vertically integrated. Therefore, the company runs and operates the Tesla’s plants where cars are manufactured and the Gigafactory, which produces the battery packs and stationary storage systems for its electric vehicles, which are sold via direct channels like the Tesla online store and the Tesla physical stores.
As an electric automaker and builder of sports cars and now trucks, Tesla’s competitors comprise companies like Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi, Rivian Lucid Motors, Toyota, and more. At the same time, Tesla is an electric energy production and storage company (SolarCity); it competes with Sunrun, SunPower, and Vivint Solar. And as an autonomous driving company, it competes with companies like Zoox, Waymo, and Baidu with self-driving software.
A real-time insurance business model enables Tesla to build its insurance arm by dynamically adjusting the premiums based on real-time driving behavior. Reduced insurance premiums hooked with the leasing arm enable Tesla to scale its demand side of the business.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur, HackerNoon and Search Engine People. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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