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A Tesla Model S owner referred 188 new sales in just 2 months: A look at Tesla’s referral program

Tesla referral leaderboard 30-12-15

The second trial period for Tesla’s referral program will end tomorrow with no word about a possible renewal, although it’s likely considering the success of the program. The top referrer currently has 188 referrals – breaking his own record of 100 during the last period from August to October.

Tesla significantly reduced the cost associated with the program after the end of the first trial period by removing the $1,000 incentive to the referrer and only keeping the $1,000 discount to the new buyer. Instead, Model S owners are incentivized to refer the vehicle through giveaways associated with their total number of referrals and their standing in the leaderboard by region.

Giveaways range from an invitation to attend the Gigafactory opening event to a free Model S Ludicrous P90D.

In Wei’s case, his 188 referrals are worth around $16 million in sales for Tesla based on an average of $85,000 per vehicle. For his promotion of the Model S, he will get a P90D worth approximately $130,000, a Tesla Powerwall worth around $3,000 and an invitation for 2 to the launch event of the Model 3 and the opening of the Gigafactory.

It’s safe to assume that it represents a good deal for the company, especially since the best referrer behind Wei, Hungyip, has 105 referrals (worth ~$9 million in sales) and Tesla will not have to give him a P90D or a Powerwall under the referral program since they are only for the top referrer and the first to 10 referrals per region.

In North America, Sylvain Juteau, publisher of Roulezelectrique.com and EVandmore.com, is on his way to be the top referrer in the region and winning the Model S P90D. Sylvain put in place an ingenious plan to win the vehicle. During the previous trial period, he managed to get 13 referrals, which won him the chance to purchase a Founder Model X at the cost of a production Model X, but also $13,000 in credits for Tesla products. He used the credits to purchase a bunch of CHAdeMO adapters ($450 each – $550 CAD in Canada where Sylvain is located), which he offered for free on top of the $1,000 discount at the purchase of the Model S while using his referral code.

Sylvain managed to get 34 referrals since November, which could be worth approximately $3 million in sales – not as good of a deal for Tesla as with Wei, but still worthwhile because of the dozens of other Model S owners who tried to best him and referred hundreds of sales in the process.

In Europe, Bjorn Nyland, a popular Model S owner from Norway, is on his way to win the P90D for the region with 51 referrals after winning a Model X during the last trial period with 55 referrals. Bjorn’s results highlights how little of a difference the lack of a $1,000 incentive made during the second trial period of the program. Nyland also used his credits from the first program to buy CHAdeMO adapters, which he distributed across Norway for people to borrow for free when needed.

The referral program seems to significantly contribute to Tesla’s ambitious delivery goal for the fourth quarter, which the company is poised to achieve as we discussed in our analysis of recent deliveries. Tesla will publish the deliveries for the quarter next week and we should know around the same time if the company renews the referral program or not.

If you plan on buying a Model S before the end of the year, you can use our publisher’s link to save $1,000 on your purchase.

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Comments

  1. Sylvain Juteau - 8 years ago

    Wei’s achievement is simply incredible! I’m personally invested almost full time (+40 hours / week) in the current referral program and I’m talking and exchanging with every referral who uses my link and I my maximum is 20 per month. So congrats Wei, at almost 100 referral per month, Tesla Motors should hire you as a sales consultant! 🙂

    I calculate that for ONLY those with more than 10 referral, we are at over 1080 referrals! If we add all those with more than 1 referral, we are probably at over 5000! Considering that Tesla’s delivery guidance for the entire forth quarter (Tesla’s referral program is only 2 months) is between 17 000 and 19 000 deliveries, we can safely state that the referral program is very important and a success for Tesla!

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