Tesla Earned More in the Last Quarter than the Oil Industry in the Last Year

While old industries and energy providers desperately cling to inefficient and environmentally toxic fossil fuels, emerging renewable energies – such as wind, wave, and solar power – are becoming increasingly cost-effective without accelerating on-going climate change, and the world is starting to notice. Case in point: last year, the US oil industry lost $67 billion while, in the last quarter alone, Elon Musk’s cleantech electric car and home energy company Tesla turned a profit of $22 billion, Electrek reports.

Tesla’s rising profits follow a 60% growth in sales of its Model S electric car, while the luxury Model X has also been gaining market share. Earlier this month, Tesla unveiled a revolutionary new solar panel roof tile, designed to complement its Powerwall home battery system.

“When the US oil industry lost $67 billion in 2015, it also slashed close to 100,000 jobs during the same period,” Electrek’s Fred Lambert says. “All the while, more Americans now work in the solar industry than the extraction of oil, gas, or coal.”

“On the other hand, Tesla has been adding jobs with now over 18,000 employees worldwide and the majority are in the US,” Lambert adds. “At the Fremont factory alone, Tesla employs over 6,000 people and it plans to bring that number up to 9,000 to support its latest expansion plans.”

Whether the US will learn from the failures and risks inherent in the fossil fuel industry – President-Elect Donald Trump has previously indicated that he believes global warming to be a hoax invented by the Chinese – and the success of renewable energy, though, remains to be seen. Even if the environmental argument is dismissed, a pragmatist should at least follow the money, and the colour of that money right now is most definitely green.