Asked on 29 September 2026 whether XPeng had signed carbon-credit agreements with Porsche and other international carmakers, a vice president of XPeng Group gave a three-word answer: "It is true."
Attached to it were the first hard numbers in a market Tesla used to own. The agreements are worth more than 1 billion yuan — about $149 million — in total, with more than 500 million yuan (about $74.6 million) of that falling in 2026. They cover compliance in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia.
That is the total under the agreements, not one year's revenue — and the first public figure for what a European compliance credit costs.
The filing said who. It did not say how much.
EU rules let carmakers pool their fleets: a maker whose average CO₂ sits above target can average itself down against one selling only electric cars, and pays for the privilege. Miss the target alone and the fine is €95 per gram per kilometre over it, multiplied by every car registered that year.
This site covered Porsche's exit from the Volkswagen Group's pool for XPeng's in August, when the EU filing appeared. The filing recorded the arrangement and said nothing about the money. The money is now public — and Porsche is not the only buyer, nor XPeng the only seller.
Leapmotor's deal is the bigger one
| Seller | Buyer | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| XPeng | Porsche AG and unnamed others | over 1 billion yuan (about $149 million), total | 2026–2027 pool |
| XPeng | — of which falling in 2026 | over 500 million yuan (about $74.6 million) | 2026 |
| Leapmotor | Stellantis | 1.11 billion yuan (about $165 million) | 2025 |
| Leapmotor | Stellantis | cap raised to 2.8 billion yuan (about $417 million) | 2026 |
Stellantis formalised its Leapmotor arrangement on 31 March 2026, covering every qualifying credit generated in Europe and the UK from that date to 31 December. Treat the 2.8 billion as a ceiling, not a result: it is what Stellantis has authorised itself to buy.
What Tesla used to earn
| Quarter | Tesla regulatory-credit revenue |
|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | $439m |
| Q3 2025 | $417m |
| Q4 2025 | $542m |
| Q1 2026 | $380m |
| Q2 2026 | $146m |
Tesla booked roughly $2 billion worldwide across 2025, down from $2.76 billion in 2024. Q2 2026 is still the latest quarter with a credit figure attached — Q3 earnings follow the 2 October delivery release — and it was down 67% year on year, the weakest since 2020.
Annualise that $146 million and Tesla's worldwide credit income runs at about $584 million. Leapmotor's European and UK cap for 2026 alone is roughly 70% of that, from one seller in one region.
The demand did not disappear
The usual explanation for Tesla's collapse here is that the rules went soft: the United States removed the penalty for missing fuel-economy standards and closes its credit-trading market in 2028, while Brussels now lets European compliance be averaged across 2025–2027 rather than judged year by year.
Both are true, and neither explains Porsche and Stellantis writing nine-figure cheques. Those two still need credits badly enough to pay for them. They are simply not paying Tesla.
What it means in Europe
Nothing in the car changes; the pressure lands on the accounts. Credit revenue is close to pure margin, so money that used to arrive without a factory attached now has to be earned from cars, storage and software.
The second-order effect is sharper, and it is specifically European. The firms collecting the EU's compliance money build cars against Tesla in the same market: XPeng funds itself partly on Porsche's emissions bill while pointing the L03 at the Model Y, and Leapmotor's T03 was Italy's fourth best-selling EV in September. Tesla spent a decade as the pool everyone joined. The pool is still there. The subscriptions go elsewhere.