Tesla sales jumped from July to September, breaking a string of quarterly declines, as U.S. car buyers raced to collect federal tax credits of up to $7,500 before the incentives expired at the end of last month.
But other automakers, including Ford, General Motors and Hyundai, reported much sharper jumps in U.S. electric vehicle sales during the third quarter.
Analysts and industry executives expect sales of electric vehicles to slump in coming months because Congress ended the tax credits and other incentives.
Tesla said it delivered 497,000 vehicles worldwide in the third quarter, up 7 percent from 463,000 a year earlier. Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, has increasingly downplayed the importance to the company of selling cars, betting instead on self-driving taxis and humanoid robots that are still being developed and do not generate significant revenue.
The company also said on Thursday that sales of large batteries rose more than 80 percent. Storage batteries, which utilities are adding to the electric grid to smooth out the fluctuations of solar and wind energy, have become an increasingly important business for Tesla.
In July, President Trump signed a law passed by Republicans in Congress that did away with a tax credit of up to $7,500 available to people who buy or lease electric vehicles. The credit ended on Sept. 30.
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The post Tesla’s Car Sales Rose 7% as U.S. E.V. Tax Credit Was Ending appeared first on New York Times.
