Without Selling A Single Vehicle, Tesla Will Make 1 Billion Euros In 2025

Tesla makes less money by selling its cars than by playing bank for other car manufacturers. While the American brand, still the world’s number 1 in electric cars, sold fewer in 2024, the sale of its CO2 credits to manufacturers who need them will continue to provide it with a nice income this year. Indeed, according to some analysts, Tesla could once again rake in more than a billion euros, not by selling its new Model Y, recently unveiled for China, but by reselling its excess CO2 quotas. Or when one man’s misfortune is another man’s gain!

Buying “pollution rights”

As a reminder, the CAFE standard requires car manufacturers not to exceed certain CO2 emissions thresholds for their entire fleet of vehicles sold. This threshold will be revised upwards in 2025, which requires manufacturers to sell at least 20% of electric vehicles. Which may not be the case for everyone!

For its part, Tesla, which only sells so-called “zero-emission” vehicles, has CO2 credit to spare. This is how a “pool” of car manufacturers has formed around Elon Musk’s firm, with Stellantis, Toyota, Ford, Subaru, and Mazda, which will pay a high price for “pollution rights.”. “Tesla’s remuneration could even exceed one billion euros if it monetizes its entire long CO2 position,” estimated in a report by analysts at UBS Bank headed by Patrick Hummel. Note that other manufacturers can join in the game; they have until February 5 to submit their request and participate in this intellectual deception.

Volvo teams up with Mercedes

Tesla would not be the only big winner in these sales of CO2 credits. Volvo, in particular, thanks to the success of its small electric SUV EX30, and more broadly, the Geely group and the Polestar and Smart brands, could also rake in interesting cash. Another “pool” has thus been created with Mercedes to compensate for the latter’s excess CO2 emissions. According to the same analysts, Volvo could thus receive up to 300 million euros. As a reminder, Tesla has already collected more than 10.2 billion dollars by selling its CO2 emission credits over the last 15 years—in the context of exponential growth. The new tightening of the CAFE standard in 2025 will only benefit it!