Battery sales keep Tesla profitable in Q2 as EV sales still slumped

Enlarge / Will investors care that Tesla’s car sales and profit margins are shrinking, not growing? (credit: Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Tesla posted its second-quarter financial results ahead of an investor call this afternoon. Earlier this month, it released its Q2 2024 production and delivery numbers, which showed a 14.4 percent year-over-year reduction in the number of cars it built and a 4.8 percent reduction in sales compared to the same three months in 2023. Now, we can see the effect that a shrinking average sales price has had on the automaker’s balance sheet.

Automotive revenues dropped a little more than deliveries, down 7 percent year-over-year to $19.9 billion—Tesla’s price cuts since last year will have contributed to that. The good news for Tesla is that it doubled its sales of batteries and solar, deploying 9.4 GWh of batteries in Q2, which brought in $3 billion in revenue.

Lots more carbon credits

Tesla also saw a healthy increase in regulatory credits, where other automakers pay the company in order to count some of its EVs toward their own fleets. This exchange allows other companies to continue polluting rather than selling more efficient vehicles. The credits more than tripled compared to 2023—Tesla raked in $890 million in credits for Q2 2024.