Tesla stock was trending higher into Monday, August 24, with market coverage putting shares up roughly 5% intraday, after a multi-day rally tied mainly to Nevada regulators’ August 20 approval of a broader robotaxi permit and anticipation around Tesla’s Cybercab program. The latest confirmed session was Friday, August 21, when shares closed at $362.86, up about 5.1% on the day. Shares remain down roughly 25% to 26% for 2026, trailing every other member of the “Magnificent Seven” group of large tech stocks.
Key facts
- Closing price: $362.86 on Friday, August 21 — up about 5.1% on the day, Tesla’s best session in months
- Year to date: shares still down roughly 25% to 26% for 2026, trailing every other “Magnificent Seven” stock
- Nevada permit: granted August 20; allows up to 5,000 driverless robotaxis in Clark County over the next 12 months
- Truck order: Sweden’s Einride ordered 500 Tesla Semi trucks, the largest single order the vehicle has received
- China recalls: nearly 3 million vehicles over door-handle releases; roughly 2.7 million more for driver-monitoring software
- US recalls: about 20,349 Model 3/Y vehicles for headlights; roughly 13,000 for a battery component
- Next milestone: Cybercab event in Austin on September 3
What’s driving the jump
The Nevada Transportation Authority granted Tesla a full permit on August 20 to run a paid, driverless robotaxi network in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. The permit allows Tesla to put up to 5,000 fully autonomous vehicles on the road there over the next 12 months. That’s a major expansion from the interim permit regulators had issued in late July, which had capped Tesla at just 10 vehicles, limited them to a 45-mph speed limit inside a small geofenced area of the Strip, and barred them from airport pickups.
Tesla itself has said it doesn’t expect to reach anything close to 5,000 vehicles for years, if ever, and plans to start with a small fleet. Commercial paid rides had not been confirmed as having begun; they were expected only after the company completed administrative steps, including vehicle inspections, insurance filings and fare approval — a process expected to take about a month from permit approval. Nevada issued similar robotaxi approvals to Uber and Alphabet’s Waymo around the same time, though with smaller caps — up to 1,000 vehicles each, versus Tesla’s 5,000 — for a combined roughly 7,000 driverless vehicles authorized across Clark County.
A second piece of good news helped the stock: Swedish freight-technology company Einride announced on August 19 that it had ordered 500 Tesla Semi electric trucks, the largest single order the truck has received. Einride plans to deploy the trucks across five U.S. states over the following two years, starting in September.
The recalls working against it
Even with the rally, Tesla is dealing with several vehicle recalls at once. The largest is in China, where regulators ordered Tesla to recall nearly 3 million vehicles over a design problem with the emergency door-release handles, which can be hard to find or operate after a serious crash disables the car’s electrical system. The recall is part of a broader roughly 4.3-million-vehicle action involving Tesla and eight other automakers in China. Tesla’s fix — warning labels plus a software update that lowers the windows automatically after a collision — is set to begin rolling out September 25. Tesla filed a separate Chinese recall covering roughly 2.7 million vehicles to strengthen the driver-monitoring system on its assisted-driving feature, and another recall/update covered more than 218,000 vehicles over delayed rearview-camera image displays.
Tesla’s recalls aren’t limited to China. In the U.S., it recalled about 20,349 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles because their low-beam headlights can shine brighter than federal limits allow. Separately, Tesla recalled a smaller batch of roughly 13,000 recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles over a battery component that could suddenly cut off power to the motor. None of the recalls has been tied to a specific, measurable hit to the stock price.
Why the stock is still down for the year
The July 22 earnings report put pressure on Tesla shares, adding to a year in which rising long-term interest rates have also weighed on high-growth stocks like Tesla. The numbers were a mixed bag: record quarterly revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26% from a year earlier, and a record 480,126 vehicles delivered, beating Wall Street’s forecast. But profit told a different story. Operating income fell 57% from a year earlier, and adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.33, below the roughly $0.53 analysts expected; free cash flow was negative $1.1 billion. The main reason: capital spending — money poured into factories, equipment and Tesla’s AI and robotics push — jumped 142% to $5.8 billion, a jump large enough that the company burned cash during the quarter instead of generating it. Shares fell roughly 15% after that report, and banks including JPMorgan, Cantor Fitzgerald and Mizuho Securities cut their price targets on the stock in response.
On average, Wall Street rates Tesla stock a “Buy,” with 12-month price targets from major research firms clustering in the high-$300s to low-$400s. Individual analysts disagree sharply: some targets sit in the low hundreds, others run as high as $500 or $600. The gap comes down to two competing bets — that Tesla’s autonomy and robotics push pays off soon, or that its slowdown in core car sales outpaces it. Either way, those targets are analyst opinion about where the stock might go, not a guarantee of what it will do.
What to watch next
Tesla’s Cybercab event in Austin on September 3 is the next scheduled milestone tied to its self-driving push. Beyond that, the company’s next quarterly earnings report is expected in late October; one report puts the date at October 28, 2026, but that date remains unconfirmed as of late August 2026. Investors weighing the stock’s next move are watching whether the Las Vegas and Austin robotaxi rollouts turn into actual paying rides, and whether Tesla’s cash burn on AI and robotics eases in the quarters ahead.