You can no longer buy a Tesla with Bitcoin. The company stopped accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment late yesterday.
Tesla launched its Bitcoin experiment less than two months ago. The value of Bitcoin fluctuates faster than that of fiat currencies. Tesla would quote a price to buyers in U.S. dollars and give them a timer during which to complete their payment.
Tesla lacks a PR department, communicating with the press almost entirely through CEO Elon Musks’s Twitter account. Musk explained the move in a tweet. He cited the immense amounts of energy used by server farms that mine the currency. “Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels, and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment,” Musk said.
Tesla critics had seized on Bitcoin’s energy usage during the brief experiment. Tesla manufactures four of the five best-selling electric cars in the U.S.
The company could accept payments in Bitcoin again in the future, Musk said. “We intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.” He also said the company was exploring other cryptocurrency options — specifically those that use less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy per transaction.
The Bitcoin payment section of Tesla’s web page was gone as of this morning. FAQ entries on how to use it remained.
