New York, Feb 25, 2026, 07:30 ET — Premarket
- Tesla shares added roughly 0.3% in premarket trading after closing Tuesday up 2.4%.
- Tesla’s January sales slump in Europe dragged on, new registration figures show, as BYD posted a jump.
- Fresh legal and regulatory disputes over hiring and Autopilot branding are also on traders’ radar.
Tesla, Inc (TSLA.O) ticked up 0.3% to $410.60 before the bell on Wednesday. That follows a 2.39% jump to $409.38 at Tuesday’s close.
Investors are working through fresh Europe-wide registration numbers, which signal demand is getting harder to chase and price competition is tightening up. That’s not great news for Tesla stock. The company still relies on selling cars for the bulk of its revenue—despite the share price often moving on the back of long-term ambitions in software, autonomy, and robotics.
Plenty of risk headlines stacking up. Tesla faces new lawsuits at home and is locked in a regulatory spat in California. Meanwhile, investors are eyeing the “AI trade” again with Nvidia’s earnings set for release after Wednesday’s close. Reuters
Tesla’s registrations in Europe dropped 17% year-on-year in January, marking a thirteenth consecutive monthly slide, ACEA data shows — Reuters reported the figures. Over that stretch, Chinese competitor BYD posted a 165% jump in registrations. Regional new car sales dropped 3.5% for the month.
Tesla will have to answer a lawsuit accusing it of anti-American bias in hiring, after a U.S. federal judge shot down the company’s attempt to get the case dismissed. Tesla dismissed the allegations as “preposterous,” but the judge said the lead plaintiff’s claims had “just enough facts” to move forward. Reuters
Tesla isn’t backing down in its clash with California regulators. The automaker has sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, after the DMV attempted to slap Tesla with a “false advertiser” label tied to its Autopilot marketing, according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch
Tesla moved to address the DMV’s concerns last week, sidestepping a potential suspension after regulators flagged “Autopilot” as a possibly misleading term. The DMV repeated that these driver-assist tools still demand full attention from the person behind the wheel. California DMV
Tesla may be talking up its car operations, but the spotlight keeps swinging back to its “physical AI” plans—robots and robotaxis still dominate the conversation. Analyst Gordon Johnson at GLJ Research didn’t mince words, labeling Tesla’s humanoid robot ambitions a “delusion.” The market, he told Barron’s, is acting as if a notoriously tough manufacturing challenge is basically a done deal. Barron’s
Rivalry in the autonomous ride-hailing sector is heating up. Waymo, owned by Alphabet, is set to roll out its robotaxi service to the public in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, putting the company’s footprint in 10 U.S. cities, according to TechCrunch. Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told the outlet Waymo is targeting more than a million rides per week by the end of the year.
Long-duration bets such as Tesla’s aren’t catching a break right now. “You are seeing more anxiety about AI disrupting businesses,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive at Horizon Investment Services, in a Reuters report covering Wednesday’s tech-heavy session. Reuters
That narrative could reverse fast. Sharper demand weakness in Europe, stricter scrutiny of driver-assistance marketing, or a courtroom setback might pull investors’ attention right back to Tesla’s delivery counts and margins — the concrete stuff, harder to ignore and straightforward to analyze.
Nvidia’s earnings land after the bell Wednesday, and traders are looking for any signals on the AI space from that report. On Tesla, eyes are peeled for potential court or regulatory actions that might push the stock’s near-term risk premium higher.
