Tesla Grabs One for the Road With Windfall from Expiring EV Tax Credit

For Tesla, the end of EV tax credits hurts so good.

Sales for the EV titan surged in the third quarter, the company reported on Thursday, as consumers rushed to buy new cars ahead of the September 30 expiration of the $7,500 federal government EV tax credit. It’s a welcome win for a company that can’t seem to stop hitting the skids.

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In fact, the EV credit expiration sparked a record sales quarter, with the company delivering 497,099 vehicles worldwide from July through September. That’s a 7.4% year-over-year jump, and a stark rebound from two straight quarters of declining year-over-year sales to start the year; Tesla sold just 336,681 cars in Q1 and 384,122 cars in Q2, both representing 13% drops from the previous year.

The reasons for the downturn were myriad and obvious: rising competition, a product line that had grown tired, broad economic unease amid a new global trade war and Musk’s political misadventures. It’s not just consumers who have grown frustrated with the company and its mercurial leader:

Tesla, in addition to other enterprises in Musk’s empire, has been beset in recent months by high-profile employee departures — happily or otherwise, according to a recent Financial Times report, which said many employees had grown frustrated with Musk’s brash style of politics and Tesla’s pivot from EVs and toward robotics and AI.

At Tesla, the brain drain has included veteran deputies such as longtime sales and operations head Omead Afshar, as well as leaders within units dedicated to developing batteries, superchargers, public policy, the Model Y and the ultimately doomed and forever unnamed low-cost Tesla model.

The Half-Trillion Dollar Man: That makes the third-quarter sales a balm for Musk’s Tesla headache, though he’s still dealing with a few others. On Thursday, Musk lost his bid to transfer an SEC lawsuit regarding his Twitter stake from a Washington, DC, court to one in Texas, where many of his companies are based. Just a day earlier, however, Musk became the first person in the world to reach a $500 billion net worth, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire Tracker. Yeah, we think he’ll be able to cover the travel expenses to get to DC.

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