Since 2008, Tesla has reported cumulative credit sales worth $4.4 billion, with $2.69 billion of that coming just since 2019. That money has been particularly impactful since 2019’s third quarter, when Tesla’s unprecedented profit streak began. In 2021’s first quarter, Tesla reported $518 million in regulatory credit sales, as well as a $101 million gain from selling 10% of its $1.5 billion Bitcoin investment. “If we sell more cars this year than last year, effectively the demand for credit is higher,” Houchois says. “It’s the gift that keeps giving, but eventually it goes away.”That’s not likely to happen until 2022, at which point Musk’s decade-old prediction of declining credit sales becomes a reality.

Source: Forbes May 06, 2021 13:30 UTC