Tesla ends the referral program on February 1 – but why?

20. January 2019 by Paul Fosse

Note: There is a long intro about my story with EV, EV lawyer, and choosing a Tesla Model 3. To go straight to the Tesla Referral Program section, go to the "But what about the referral program" section?

The purpose of writing this article is to tell you my experience with the Tesla referral program and why I think it ends.

I've been talking and writing about cars since 1974. I was very interested in the transition from rear-wheel drive to front-wheel drive . It seemed like such a big change in the industry. But compared to the transition from petrol-powered cars to electric, it is small.

Front-wheel drive vehicles use slightly less gas and have a little better fuel economy, but they do not interfere with the oil industry or threaten to destroy careers from thousands of engineers and manufacturing associations in the automotive industry. No, this is a much larger transition.

I've been interested in this transition since around 2010. I'd heard about electric cars before then, but I really thought they were a joke. But I remember seeing some articles on the upcoming Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt. Gas had nailed up to nearly $ 5 a gallon and I wanted to try something to save money.

My brother-in-law in Brazil said that many people converted taxis there to use natural gas and that saved a lot of money, but if your installer made a mistake, your car blew up. It wasn't very safe. I looked at the only production car that uses natural gas, the Honda Civic GX, and it sounded much safer. I found out that there were only a couple of drives in Tampa and thought it could be a problem, but the area was good for about 250 miles.

Leaf and Volt can recharge in my house, which sounded much easier, and cost savings were similar. I wasn't worried about long walks since I wanted to take the Honda Odyssey for them. So I decided to buy either a Leaf or a Volt. They were both out at the same time and I picked the magazine for 3 reasons.

1. Leafet set 5 and Volt sitting 4. I have a family of 5, so the magazine could take the whole family. This didn't end up being so important to my family, but it was better for carpooling kids.
2. I was (and to some extent still) upset with GM for taking the bailout.
3. The magazine was about $ 5,000 smaller and I realized if I needed more range, I would swap cars with my wife.

So after an 18 month wait, I bought the magazine on December 1, 2012, making me one of the first EV owners in Florida (other than some Tesla Roadster owners and people who had converted their cars into their garages). I was invited to the local AAA office for the grand opening of level 2 chargers and was interviewed by several of the local TV stations. I emphasized how the car was "normal". It was quite fast from the start and very quiet, and of course, emission-free. In talking to hundreds of people about my Leaf (and maybe a million in the mornings), I convinced me to buy a Leaf via a $ 199 special lease. Most thought it was a nice idea, but didn't like the style or the short-range hassle and had to find charging stations.

When I heard the Tesla Model 3 came out for $ 35,000, it was rumored to be fast, good looking and have over 200 miles of reach, I was interested. Not interested enough to queue or take off work, but interested enough to go online to put down a $ 1000 reservation an hour before it was revealed. Remember, I paid more than $ 35,000 for my top line Leaf! I realized if I could get a Tesla for the same or a little more money, that would be a good deal!

When it was time to set up my order, 2 years later, I was disappointed that the 35,000 dollar car was not available and I have to either buy a more expensive model or wait a little longer. I discussed it with my wife, and although I wanted the card model, she wanted the long-distance model. We decided on a color (I talked her into Midnight Silver) and she talked me into the performance wheels and said the aero wheels looked geeky. Since I don't drive a lot of highway, I was indefinite on Enhanced Autopilot, but decided to get it because I really want full self-drive when it comes out and it saved you $ 1000 to buy it up (now it saves you $ 2000 ).

When I received the car, it was all I hoped it would be – fast, fun and good! As I have previously written, people were much more interested in model 3 than they were in the magazine. Almost everyone who sees and drives in the car, comments on how they see this, is the future, and wants to buy an electric car at some point in the future. Most people are not ready to change the switch today. It's just too different for them to absorb all the new technology. I understand. I felt the same way when I first saw the iPhone. It was pretty, but I just couldn't understand how it would change everything.

Traveling to Sarasota

I had read CleanTechnica for years and seriously considered going to an EV conference that they attended over in Cocoa, FL. Unfortunately, the conference was during the week and I wouldn't take the vacation time to go to it. But I wanted to meet some of the EV experts who worked at CleanTechnica . When I read that Zachary moved back to Sarasota and hadn't run a model 3, I knew I should let him drive mine.

This was left before you could go to a Tesla dealer and just drive them anytime. In July 2018, the dealers had no demos yet. Then I drove with my friends and met Zachary! After this trip, Zachary encouraged me to start writing a little bit for the site. I had been promoting Tesla on my Facebook timeline this year, but the front desk wasn't particularly hot. Most of my Facebook friends did not like Tesla since they received help from the government and thought the company would break as soon as the subsidies ended. I found when writing for a website that is pro EV that you get a much better reception.

But what about the referral program?

Yes, I get some of the topic that tells stories, but the point is to give you context that I didn't start out, just try to get Tesla referrals. I really have a long interest in EV and just stumbled into the referral program by accident.

For my first 6 articles, I didn't even include my referral code. The free Supercharging was just good for model S and model X cars (later the model 3 performance was added) and I realized everyone I knew and who reads my articles couldn't afford it expensive by a car.

It all changed on October 6 when Tesla expanded the referral program to allow buyers of ALL Model 3s to get free Supercharging! I knew that the $ 49,000 car with tax credit, gas and maintenance savings was affordable for many more people, so I began to include the referral code in my articles, while encouraging people to use codes for people they know personally. I didn't know if people would use it, but I thought I might as well include it, just in case they didn't know any Tesla owners.

The price I really wanted was to be invited to the model Y-unveiled (5 referrals). Things have changed a lot in 3 months. As I mentioned this week, I now have 75 referrals and have found that there are secret levels that allow you to get discounts on the upcoming Tesla Roadster. It looks like I get 1 Roadster for free and 1 at 40% off. I hope to get some more referrals in the next 2 weeks so I can get a bigger discount on the other Roadster. Taxes and insurance on Roadster can be quite high, so it can be difficult to afford it, even if it is free, so most people who have many referrals try to get 2 so they can sell one to pay tax on it. others – and can thus keep it. Otherwise, most will just have to sell it instead of running it.

For each referral, someone in my position will receive an additional 2% of the cost of a founder's Roadster edition, which is expected to cost $ 250,000. So, every referral is worth $ 5,000 before tax, about $ 2,500 after tax. The benefits to the buyer are unfortunately less. 6 months free Supercharging (9 months if you don't have the test drive a model 3) is worth around $ 200, assuming you spend it at 1,000 miles a month for 6 months instead of charging at home for 13 cents a kWh. [19659029] Note that the price of overcharging only went up (it can now be different on each station and is not constant throughout the state) and is about 30 cents per kWh. So, if you compare it to 9 months at 1000 miles per month and 30 cents per kWh, you save savings up to $ 675.

So, while it Lower level prizes are roughly equal to the buyer and referrer since, the bigger prizes are much larger for the referral. This encouraged some bad behavior, with people who announced their referral codes and sponsored shows that people have another person's referral code. The problem is that this is both expensive and the brand seems a bit like a multi-level marketing scam.

Let's play with some numbers. If Tesla sells 400,000 cars next year, and each person uses a referral code from an owner who buys a Roadster, they will give up to $ 2 billion in 8,000 Roadster discounts. It's about double Tesla's expected earnings next year. That would be a serious problem.

Now it would only happen if the referrals were given by a group of 8,000 super referrals. Tesla sold 245,240 cars in 2018. If they were distributed to 2450 super referrals, it would cost Tesla $ 1.2 billion in Roadster discounts. Instead, as you can see from this site, it appears that they were distributed to around 75 people (including myself) who are likely to get around 100 free or heavily discounted Roadsters, which cost Tesla about $ 25 million, or just about 2% of the potential cost. But I think 4 things are worried about Tesla:

1. As time went by, more of the owners would unlock the secret level and cost the company substantial money.
2. The publishing of the bad actors and the inequality of the benefits between buyers & small referrals and the big referrals (like myself) would be bad for the brand.
3. Giving away too many free Roadsters would damage the car's image. If it's keeping the exclusive allure, they can't build and give away to many of them.
4. Giving away free Supercharging encourages people to upgrade instead of charging at home. This is not how the system is designed, and with many more Tesla hitting the road in the next year, it can lead to overpopulation.

Conclusion

I think it is a good decision that Tesla ends the referral program for all the reasons I explained above. I promoted EVs before the referral program and will continue to market them after it's finished.

But I will admit that it did something changed my behavior. It encouraged me to write more about Tesla and less about the other EVs out there (although it was not much more exciting than in the US, the explosion in sales in the US). I have several articles on other topics (hybrids, sun, etc.) which I have delayed to focus on Tesla, since the referral program is a limited time opportunity.

With all that said, if you want to take advantage of My Tesla referral link to get up to 9 months free Supercharging (6 months if you have a test drive a car with Tesla) on a model S, model X or model 3 , here's the code: https://ts.la/paul92237 – but as I've said before, if another owner helped you more, please use their link instead of mine.

Tags: Nissan, Nissan Leaf, Nissan LEAF long-term review, Tesla, Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model 3 long-term review

About the author

Paul Fosse I have been a software engineer for over 30 years, first worked on EDI software and more recently developed data storage systems in telecommunications and healthcare. Along the way, I have also had the opportunity to start a software consulting firm and make portfolio management for several investment firms. In 2010 I took an interest in electric cars because gas became expensive. In 2015, I started reading CleanTechnica and took an interest in solar energy, mainly because it was a threat to my oil and gas investments in my investment funds. Tesla investor. Tesla referral code: https://ts.la/paul92237