Regulatory credits are real revenue, but they are a small slice of Tesla's profits, not the engine of them. In 2024 Tesla earned about $2.76 billion from selling emissions credits — meaningful, but against roughly $77 billion in automotive revenue and an automotive gross profit around $15 billion. The vast majority of Tesla's gross profit comes from actually building and selling cars, plus a fast-growing energy-storage business that set record deployments. The Model Y has been one of the best-selling vehicles on the planet — you cannot sell millions of cars a year and be a paper credit-trading shop. Credits do flatter the margin and will shrink as rivals electrify, which is a legitimate caveat. But the claim that Tesla "only" makes money on credits is contradicted by its own audited financials: strip the credits out and Tesla is still solidly profitable from selling physical products.