Tesla's stock dropped more than 14% on Thursday, July 23, after company CEO Elon Musk addressed investors amid a record number of unsold EVs and an uptick in the number of automated driving crashes reported by the company.
Tesla stock dropped 14.52%, to nearly $319 per share by the end of trading Thursday on the NASDAQ stock exchange, after Musk sought to reassure investors about his company's commitment to both safety and the continued expansion of its Robotaxi services.
"Our goals are very ambitious for Robotaxi, but we do need to be cautious about causing any accidents or causing any harm to anyone," he said.
Musk added: "We've opened up a number of cities in Florida and in Texas and obviously in the Bay Area. So we'll continue to scale, I think,
very, very rapidly on – with it looks like more than 10% a week in terms of miles driven. So it's a very high compound growth rate."
The comments come as Tesla has reported more than 200 crashes involving its automated driver assistance systems in recent months, according to data compiled by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
What did Musk say about Tesla's unsold EVs?
Tesla has produced 860,144 electric vehicles so far in 2026, but the company has only sold 838,149 thus far. That leaves the company sitting on about 22,000 unsold EVs heading into the second half of the year.
Despite the glut of unsold EVs, Musk told Tesla investors on the July earning call that he is optimistic about Tesla's sales.
"It's been a great quarter," he said. "We achieved record Q2 deliveries. Model Y, I believe it is now, I think it's the best-selling car of any kind in the world and is setting records across the board. So its popularity is increasing tremendously. And we're seeing in locations that have FSD approved, we're seeing a very high take rate of FSD."
Musk added: "And in fact, I think, for a lot of people, they're actually buying Tesla full self-driving with a car attached as opposed to a car with FSD. They're coming into our stores in the U.S. and they want the full self-driving and with whatever car comes with it essentially. So, clearly, this is a significant demand driver. And as we get approval for FSD in different countries, I think we'll see a similar uptick in demand. So, yes, it's looking very good on that front."
Musk also promised that Tesla would continue to lean into its Robotaxi expansion, saying "we're providing live updates for Robotaxi launch as we open up in a city. We immediately post that on X. So if you just follow the Tesla account on X, but we'll keep you informed as we scale to new cities."
How was Tesla's stock performing before Elon Musk's remarks?
Tesla's stock was trading at about $391 per share a week ago, on July 16.
Here's how the stock was trading in the past week:
- July 22: $374.01
- July 21: $378.93
- July 20: $367.57
- July 17: $380.84
- July 16: $391.06
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tesla stock drops sharply amid glut of unsold EVs, crash report uptick
