Tesla (TSLA) Stock Drops Toward 8th Straight Weekly Loss as Deliveries Disappoint

TLDR

• Tesla reported Q1 2026 EV deliveries of 358,023, missing the Wall Street estimate of 370,000.
• The stock is down 23% year-to-date and on track for an eight-week losing streak.
• Tesla produced 408,300 vehicles but only delivered 358,023, creating its largest-ever unsold inventory backlog.
• Options trading activity that previously supported the stock has been fading in 2026.
• Analysts expect Tesla to generate negative free cash flow of over $6 billion this year.

Tesla missed EV delivery expectations again in Q1 2026, and this time there’s an inventory problem to go along with it.

Tesla, Inc., TSLA

The company delivered 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter, falling short of the 370,000 Wall Street had penciled in. That’s technically a 6% rise from Q1 2025, but that comparison isn’t very flattering — Q1 2025 deliveries were themselves down 13% year over year.

Tesla produced 408,300 vehicles in the quarter but only moved 358,023 of them. The gap of roughly 50,000 units represents the largest unsold vehicle backlog in the company’s history.

JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman flagged the inventory buildup as a headwind for free cash flow, since that stock of unsold cars ties up cash until the vehicles are sold.

Free Cash Flow Under Pressure

The timing makes it worse. Tesla already raised its capital expenditure guidance to $20 billion for 2026, up from $8.5 billion in 2025. Most of that is earmarked for AI and humanoid robot production.

Analysts tracked by Visible Alpha expect Tesla to post negative free cash flow of more than $6 billion this year, and over $1.2 billion in 2027.

The broader EV market hasn’t helped either. Increased competition, Trump administration tariffs, and the removal of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit have all weighed on demand across the sector.

The Model 3 and Model Y made up 97% of all Q1 deliveries, showing just how much the company still leans on those two models.

Options Support Fading

Away from the fundamentals, there’s another dynamic at play. GLJ Research analyst Gordon Johnson has been tracking options activity in Tesla and found that retail traders have pulled back on aggressive call buying in 2026.

In past years, heavy call buying forced brokers to hedge by purchasing the underlying stock. That buying pressure created what traders call a “gamma squeeze,” a feedback loop that pushed the stock price higher regardless of what the business was actually doing.

Johnson’s view is that this mechanical support has been fading, leaving the stock more exposed to its actual fundamentals. He rates Tesla a Sell with a $25.28 price target — far below the average analyst target and well outside the mainstream.

Even so, his observation about options flow is worth noting as a technical factor.

Coming into Friday, Tesla was trading at $344.82 in premarket, down about 0.2%. The stock is valued at roughly 170 times estimated 2026 earnings.

Total 2025 deliveries came in at 1.64 million, down from 1.79 million in 2024.

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