Tesla Is Down 26% in 2026 and Trailing Every Magnificent Seven Peer. Here's What Could Turn It Around.

The shine has come off Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) in the last few years. At one point, it was considered the definitive growth stock for investors to own, with shareholders betting that founder Elon Musk would take the lead in the emerging electric vehicle (EV) industry, along with other promises in areas like energy storage and self-driving technology. There was no price too high to pay for owning Tesla.

Now, investors have begun to sour on the EV maker, in favor of other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, including the other Musk-led business, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia.

For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue » In 2026, Tesla shares are down 26% year to date. Here's what the business needs to do to get the share price moving in the right direction.

Originally, Tesla was a bet on the growth of electric vehicle sales. It showed tremendous growth in scaling up production of its Model 3 and Model Y, increasing from 100,000 total deliveries in 2017 to 1.8 million in 2023. However, since 2023, total vehicle deliveries have stalled, leading to a similar stagnation in the share price.

Musk has pivoted Tesla's business toward new AI products, while keeping his chatbot and cloud computing ambitions within the xAI/SpaceX corporation. These Tesla AI products include the Cybercab, a two-seat vehicle that will be the flagship of the company's self-driving taxi network, similar to how Waymo operates today. It also has its standard full self-driving (FSD) software, which is sold on top of vehicles.

It is a bit confusing because this is not necessarily fully autonomous software right now, but it has 1.48 million active subscriptions, growing 56% year over year. Lastly, Tesla is working extensively to embed AI in robotics with its humanoid robot, Optimus. This is in even earlier days than the Cybercab, but the company is working to scale up a factory in California for humanoid robot production as we speak.