Since 2009, Tesla has had a neat little hustle selling regulatory credits it collects for moving relatively large numbers of electric vehicles into markets like China, Europe and California. The company obtains credits by selling electric vehicles and subsequently sells them to car companies whose current offer exceeds the emission rules set in certain territories. The deal turned out to be quite lucrative for Tesla, he explains Automotive News : The Elon Musk-led manufacturer generated $1.79 billion in regulatory credit revenue last year, it revealed last week. This brought Tesla's cumulative total profit since 2009 to nearly 9 billion. ( Owen Bellwood, more at jalopnik.com)