Investor's Corner
GM and Fiat Chrysler admit that they’re buying regulatory credits from Tesla
Being an automaker that exclusively produces all-electric vehicles, Tesla has been gaining significant revenue over the years by selling federal greenhouse gas credits to fellow carmakers, which are needed by the car companies to offset the sales of internal combustion vehicles in the US market. Filings earlier this year have revealed that two of Tesla’s most notable credit buyers are none other than General Motors Co. (GM) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA).
In filings to the state of Delaware, GM and FCA disclosed that they have an agreement to purchase greenhouse gas credits from Tesla. These filings, while light on details, are nevertheless notable, as they confirm that even established, veteran carmakers such as GM and Fiat Chrysler are looking to Tesla as a means to comply with the United States’ environmental regulations.
FCA’s purchase of credits from Tesla is quite unsurprising considering that the company has already been revealed to have entered an estimated $500 million open pool deal with the Silicon Valley-based electric car maker for the European region, which would allow Fiat Chrysler to count Tesla’s vehicles as part of its fleet to avoid incurring emissions penalties. What was surprising about the Delaware filings was that GM was purchasing credits from Tesla as well.
GM, after all, has been producing the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid and Chevy Bolt EV for the US market for years. Despite the recent retirement of the Volt, it was largely assumed that GM’s electric and electrified vehicle lineup would leave the automaker in the clear when it comes to regulatory compliance. Nevertheless, Mike Taylor, founder and president of Houston-based environmental credit consultant and broker Emission Advisors, noted that GM’s decision to purchase credits from Tesla could be part of the company’s preparations for the future, especially if political tides shift in the 2020 election. “This might not be a bad hedge. If a Democrat gets elected in 2020, GM may need the credits and prices may go up,” Taylor said.
This assumption appears to have been highlighted by GM spokesman Pat Morrissey. In a statement to Bloomberg, the spokesman noted that the credits GM bought from Tesla are insurance against “future regulatory uncertainties.” FCA spokesman Eric Mayne, for his part, indicated that US standards are getting stricter at a pace that “far exceeds” the current level of demand for electric cars that are required for compliance. “Until demand catches up with regulatory requirements, and there is regulatory relief, we will use credits as appropriate,” Mayne stated.
Tesla has not issued a comment about GM and FCA’s credit purchases so far, though it should be noted that Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn pointed out during a call with prospective investors that sales of credits will be a more significant part of the electric car maker’s business in the following years. The previous quarters have proven lucrative for Tesla in this light, as the company reported $216 million in revenue from the sale of regulatory credits in the first quarter alone.
Automakers in the United States appear to be dependent on credits to meet the country’s regulations so far. For the 2017 model year, for example, all American automakers were found to have complied with US rules, though the EPA has noted that most large car companies used credits to meet the requirements.
Investor's Corner
Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.
Tesla reported it delivered 467,762 Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.
🚨 BREAKING: Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2, ANNIHILATING Wall Street expectations of 406,000. Production was reported at 451,758.
Deliveries:
Model 3/Y: 467,762
Other Models: 12,364Production:
Model 3/Y: 442,936
Other Models: 8,822 https://t.co/TTHwQAsKt8 pic.twitter.com/7qI4Zj6FE5— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 2, 2026
The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.
Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.
For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.
Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.
Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing
The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.
Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
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