Things could have been so much worse for this past quarter.
In a period when profit fell 45%, the electric carmaker benefited from a potent weapon for improving its income statement: regulatory credits.
A record amount, equal to more than half of Tesla’s second-quarter profit, was attributed Tuesday to the sale of these credits to rival automakers that use them to meet emission rules.
The money, essentially pure profit, isn’t technically a subsidy. Tesla rather benefits from government programs—such as in California—that are aimed at pushing the development of electric and other green vehicles.
The latest payday arrived as Musk reiterates that he is in favor of eliminating government subsidies to encourage the development of electric vehicles and pushes for the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who has pledged to reverse EV policies intended to nurture the industry in the U.S.
Tesla’s ability to make popular EVs—so many that it earns regulatory credits to sell to rivals around the world—also comes as Musk is talking about how he views his company not as a simple automaker, but as an artificial-intelligence company developing autonomous, or driverless, cars and humanoid robots.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/...p-fuel-tesla-profit-c9887cdf?mod=hp_lead_pos3
In a period when profit fell 45%, the electric carmaker benefited from a potent weapon for improving its income statement: regulatory credits.
A record amount, equal to more than half of Tesla’s second-quarter profit, was attributed Tuesday to the sale of these credits to rival automakers that use them to meet emission rules.
The money, essentially pure profit, isn’t technically a subsidy. Tesla rather benefits from government programs—such as in California—that are aimed at pushing the development of electric and other green vehicles.
The latest payday arrived as Musk reiterates that he is in favor of eliminating government subsidies to encourage the development of electric vehicles and pushes for the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who has pledged to reverse EV policies intended to nurture the industry in the U.S.
Tesla’s ability to make popular EVs—so many that it earns regulatory credits to sell to rivals around the world—also comes as Musk is talking about how he views his company not as a simple automaker, but as an artificial-intelligence company developing autonomous, or driverless, cars and humanoid robots.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/...p-fuel-tesla-profit-c9887cdf?mod=hp_lead_pos3
