What Could Surprise Tesla Stock Investors On The Upside?
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Tesla (TSLA) is best known for its cars and its Robotaxi plans, but the surprise may come from a smaller business. That matters because Tesla’s fiscal Q3 2026 sales of $28.0 billion were almost exactly what it reported a year earlier. On its October 21, 2026 call, management said orders for that smaller business already reach into 2027. So which business is it, and how far along is it?
Tesla’s Megapacks Are Almost Sold Out For 2027
That business is energy storage. Management said on the fiscal Q3 2026 call that Tesla is almost sold out of all Megapacks for 2027 and is ramping production as quickly as possible. The company also said the energy business is seeing extreme demand from data centers.
Management said fiscal Q3 2026 was also Tesla’s second-best quarter for energy storage deployments. A nearly sold-out 2027 is still a statement about orders, not revenue Tesla has already booked.
How Big Is Tesla’s Energy Business Against Car Sales?
Tesla’s energy segment brought in $12.8 billion in fiscal 2025, or 13.5% of the company’s total. Sales grew 26.6% that year, after 67.1% in fiscal 2024, showing the business is still growing fast but more slowly than before. In the same year, revenue from the car business fell 6.3%.
In dollars, energy added $2.7 billion of revenue in fiscal 2025. That is a real gain, but most of Tesla’s sales still come from the car business, which brought in $82.1 billion that year.
Investors already pay a high price for Tesla’s total sales. The company trades at 12.5 times its revenue over the past twelve months, against 3.2 times for the S&P 500. On November 3, 2026, the stock closed 18.7% below its highest close of the past year. Over the year to that date, it lost 12.7%, while the S&P 500 returned 11.9%. Even after that fall, the price appears to assume growth well beyond what energy storage alone can supply.
What Lifted Tesla’s Energy Margin In Fiscal Q3 2026?
Tesla’s energy gross margin rose to 33.1% in fiscal Q3 2026 from 20.4% the quarter before. Management attributed the rise primarily to tariff refunds recognized in the quarter and to warranty costs that a vendor will reimburse.
The fiscal Q3 2026 energy margin is not yet a clean read on how profitable energy storage is on its own sales. Management said the tariff refund money is being reinvested to expand production capacity in the U.S.
When Tesla next reports, expected in January 2027, the numbers to watch are the energy margin and quarterly deployments, which were 13.7 gigawatt hours in fiscal Q3 2026.
Beyond TSLA: A Systematic Way To Invest
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