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One crucial factor helped keep Tesla profitable last quarter, and it wasnt direct car sales. In its latest earnings report, the company said that it earned $595 million from selling regulatory credits to other automakers. The credits are issued by governments, including California, that require car companies to hit certain emissions goals by selling cleaner vehicles. If they dont, they have to make up the gap by buying credits from companies like Tesla that make zero-emissions cars. Teslas sales tanked in the first quarter as Elon Musks dive into politics pushed away customers, both in the U.S. and internationally. The company reported that it earned $409 million in the first quarter of 2025, down 71% from the same quarter a year ago. Without the revenue from selling credits, Tesla would have posted a $186 million loss. Now, President Trump is actively trying to dismantle the system that makes the credits possible. Republicans in Congress are helping that effort. The House is set to vote this week on a bill that aims to take away Californias right to have strict air quality standardsand the market for zero-emissions vehicle credits that exists in the state. A long history of relying on credits The credits have been important since Teslas beginning. In the early years, its really what kept them out of bankruptcy, says David Sperling, founding director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. Sperling previously helped set up the zero-emissions vehicle credit system in California. Multiple other states that follow Californias air quality standards, from Colorado to Virginia, also issue the credits. While Tesla also earns money from a credit system in Europe and a small amount through a federal program, most of the credits it sells are in California and other states. At points in the companys history when it particularly struggled, credits kept it going. The company was structurally unprofitable for a long, long time, says Ed Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. If the cushion of the credits hadnt existed, the company might look very different now. Musk once considered a sale to Google at one of Tesla’s low points, for example. In theory, the company might not have even survived. The credits still matter Eventually, Tesla was selling enough cars that it became profitable without the credits (at least until now). But the credits continued playing an important role. Especially given the economic uncertainty right now, it remains an important driver for a type of profit in pre-cash flows, says Seth Goldstein, an equity analyst at Morningstar. Credits also helped it accrue around $37 billion in cash. If we do have a long-term economic slowdown, Tesla should be able to withstand the slowdown because it does have such a strong balance sheet, Goldstein says. So I’ll attribute that to the credit allowing Tesla to put itself in a very strong position. The credits werent designed to last forever, and Goldstein argues that Tesla is positioning itself not to need them. As more automakers make EVs, theyll have to buy fewer credits from electric-first companies like Tesla. Eventually, if California can keep its plan in place, all new car sales in the state will be zero-emissions by 2035. But as the state ramps up its emissions requirements on the way to that goal, some brands may not be able to keep up the pace and credits will become more valuable. “The value of the credits is pretty low right now because the market is outpacing the regulatory requirements,” says Sperling. “But that’s going to change probably within a year or two. If the authority stays in place and the regulations stay in place, those credits are going to become more and more valuable.” As Tesla’s sales falter, the credits play a more important role. The drop in sales isn’t solely because of the damage that Musk has caused the brand. Other car companies now offer a suite of options for EVs that customers may find more appealing, especially as Tesla has been slow to roll out new models. Musk has touted Tesla’s work on robotics and automation, but neither are ready to immediately come to market. (Both may be the latest examples of Musk’s hype machine.) The company has promised a new, more affordable car, but it likely won’t be out until next year. The sales of its current lineup of cars are still critical, which means that credits are, too. No one knows what’s next The state credits are at risk in two ways. Right now they’re possible because of California’s long-standing right to regulate air pollution. When the Clean Air Act passed in 1970, California already had air quality laws, so it was given a waiver to continue setting its own strict emissions standards for cars. Other states also have the option to follow California. Trump tried to eliminate that waiver in his first term, and California and other states sued. (Four automakers then agreed to voluntarily meet California’s standards.) When Biden took office, with the lawsuit still underway, he restored the waiver. But fuel producers and industry groups suedsaying the Environmental Protection Agency shouldn’t have put the waiver back in placeand the Supreme Court is now considering whether that lawsuit can proceed. Separately, Congressional Republicans are trying to reverse the EPA’s waivers for California’s plans to phase out new gas cars and trucks. The House will vote this week. In the Senate, the parliamentarian has said that Congress doesn’t have the authority to repeal the waivers. But Senate Republicans may try anyway. Whatever happens, more lawsuits will follow. That means that the regulatory credits won’t immediately disappear. And Tesla, for now, will be able to keep using themeven as Elon Musk continues to rant about government handouts.
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Is your green my green? Probably not. What appears as pure green to me will likely look a bit yellowish or blueish to you. This is because visual systems vary from person to person. Moreover, an objects color may appear differently against different backgrounds or under different lighting. These facts might naturally lead you to think that colors are subjective. That, unlike features such as length and temperature, colors are not objective features. Either nothing has a true color, or colors are relative to observers and their viewing conditions. But perceptual variation has misled you. We are philosophers who study colors, objectivity, and science, and we argue in our book The Metaphysics of Colors that colors are as objective as length and temperature. Perceptual variation There is a surprising amount of variation in how people perceive the world. If you offer a group of people a spectrum of color chips ranging from chartreuse to purple and asked them to pick the unique green chipthe chip with no yellow or blue in ittheir choices would vary considerably. Indeed, there wouldnt be a single chip that most observers would agree is unique green. Generally, an objects background can result in dramatic changes in how you perceive its colors. If you place a gray object against a lighter background, it will appear darker than if you place it against a darker background. This variation in perception is perhaps most striking when viewing an object under different lighting, where a red apple could look green or blue. Of course, that you experience something differently does not prove that what is experienced is not objective. Water that feels cold to one person may not feel cold to another. And although we do not know who is feeling the water correctly, or whether that question even makes sense, we can know the temperature of the water and presume that this temperature is independent of your experience. Similarly, that you can change the appearance of somethings color is not the same as changing its color. You can make an apple look green or blue, but that is not evidence that the apple is not red. Under different lighting conditions, objects take on different colors. [Photo: Liia Galimzianova/Getty Images] For comparison, the moon appears larger when its on the horizon than when it appears near its zenith. But the size of the moon has not changed, only its appearance. Hence, that the appearance of an objects color or size varies is, by itself, no reason to think that its color and size are not objective features of the object. In other words, the properties of an object are independent of how they appear to you. That said, given that there is so much variation in how objects appear, how do you determine what color something actually is? Is there a way to determine the color of something despite the many different experiences you might have of it? Matching colors Perhaps determining the color of something is to determine whether it is red or blue. But we suggest a different approach. Notice that squares that appear to be the same shade of pink against different backgrounds look different against the same background. The smaller squares may appear to be the same color, but if you compare them with the strip of squares at the bottom, theyre actually different shades. [Photo: Shobdohin/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA] Its easy to assume that to prove colors are objective would require knowing which observers, lighting conditions and backgrounds are the best, or normal. But determining the right observers and viewing conditions is not required for determining the very specific color of an object, regardless of its name. And it is not required to determine whether two objects have the same color. To determine whether two objects have the same color, an observer would need to view the objects side by side against the same background and under various lighting conditions. If you painted part of a room and find that you dont have enough paint, for instance, finding a match might be very tricky. A color match requires that no observer under any lighting condition will see a difference between the new paint and the old. That two people can determine whether two objects have the same color even if they dont agree on exactly what that color isjust as a pool of water can have a particular temperature without feeling the same to me and youseems like compelling evidence to us that colors are objective features of our world. Colors, science, and indispensability Everyday interactions with colorssuch as matching paint samples, determining whether your shirt and pants clash, and even your ability to interpret works of artare hard to explain if colors are not objective features of objects. But if you turn to science and look at the many ways that researchers think about colors, it becomes harder still. For example, in the field of color science, scientific laws are used to explain how objects and light affect perception and the colors of other objects. Such laws, for instance, predict what happens when you mix colored pigments, when you view contrasting colors simultaneously or successively, and when you look at colored objects in various lighting conditions. The philosophers Hilary Putnam and Willard van Orman Quine made famous what is known as the indispensability argument. The basic idea is that if something is indispensable to science, then it must be real and objectiveotherwise, science wouldnt work as well as it does. For example, you may wonder whether unobservable entities such as electrons and electromagnetic fields really exist. But, so the argument goes, the best scientific explanations assume the existence of such entities and so they must exist. Similarly, because mathematics is indispensable to contemporary science, some philosophers argue that this means mathematical objects are objective and exist independently of a persons mind. The bright colors of this granular poison frog signal a warning to predators of its toxicity. [Photo: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA] Likewise, we suggest that color plays an indispensable role in evolutionary biology. For example, researchers have argued that aposematismthe use of colors to signal a warning for predatorsalso benefits an animals ability to gather resources. Here, an animals coloration works directly to expand its food-gathering niche insofar as it informs potential predators that the animal is poisonous or venomous. In fact, animals can exploit the fact that the same color pattern can be perceived differently by different perceivers. For instance, some damselfish have ultraviolet face patterns that help them be recognized by other members of their species and communicate with potential mates while remaining largely hidden to predators unable to perceive ultraviolet colors. In sum, our ability to determine whether objects are colored the same or differently and the indispensable roles they play in science suggest that colors are as real and objective as length and temperature. Elay Shech is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University. Michael Watkins is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Social media users have been having a field day with Waymos autonomous vehicles, sharing videos that poke fun at the driverless cars getting stuck, acting unpredictably, or simply navigating the world a little too awkwardly. The latest wave of posts follows Waymos recent expansion into Austin, where users are already documenting bizarre and frustrating experiences with the service. TikTok user Becky Levin Navarro posted a video on April 20 claiming a Waymo car trapped her and her fellow passengers on the side of a highway after heading in the wrong direction. This is the most insane thing. Were in a Waymo, here, under Mopac, she said. It was going the wrong way, we called customer support, it stopped us right here and wouldnt let us out of the car. @beckypearlatx Zero stars for waymo. When we pulled up next to Deep Eddy Cabaret and the waymo didnt let us out and instead kept going the wrong direction towards downtown we said please let us out here it wouldnt let us out so it headed east, turned around back towards deep eddy cabaret and then STOPPED in a horrible spot to stop. We kept asking for it to move and customer service refused. #waymo #tiktok original sound – Becky Levin Navarro The video shows passengers speaking to customer support through the cars intercom. The agent explains the car can’t be moved manually, and asks for a physical address to relocate the vehicle. A Waymo spokesperson later responded: Waymo riders always have the ability to pause their ride and exit the vehicle when desired. Passengers can exit the vehicle by pulling the handle twiceonce to unlock and another to open the door. From being called drunk robots to causing traffic jams in the middle of the night, Waymo has become a regular subject of online trolling. Viral clips include Waymos honking at each other in the early morning hours, jamming up intersections, and getting stuck in drive-throughs. Some show police and parking enforcement stepping in to deal with wayward vehicles. @bluenote727 Waymo Self Driving Car Big Malfunction original sound – Blue Note A video from San Francisco shows a Waymo going the wrong way during a Warriors game as officials try to redirect it. Its not funny. This is a very serious matter, a police officer jokes to bystanders. The vehicle eventually backs up, awkwardly swerving to avoid a pickup truck. See, it worked!” the officer says with a shrug. “Still a little weird. I wouldnt have went that way, but . . . @travellingnepali When a Waymo driverless car goes the wrong way during a Warriors game in SF and the cops + parking enforcement have to teach it a lesson. Waymo: processing processing Finally it gets the memo and turns back! #Waymo #bayareacheck WaymorivingStruggles #SanFrancisco #WarriorsGame #driverlesscar #nepali original sound – Anil & Mansha Waymos fleet has more than tripled on California roads over the past year. A DMV report from April 11 cites 30 autonomous vehicle incidents in 2024. Still, Waymo reports 81% fewer injury-causing crashes and 64% fewer airbag deployments compared to human drivers in San Francisco and Phoenix. Despite its safety claims, the company remains a favorite online target. As Waymo expands into more citiesincluding a recent launch in Tokyothe internet doesnt seem ready to let the driverless cars off the hook.
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