Tesla relaunches referral program for cars, raffles a Cybertruck

Tesla has relaunched its referral program, now called Loyalty Program, for its electric cars rather than just solar products. As part of it, you can now win a Cybertruck.

Tesla doesn’t like to spend on marketing or advertising, and instead, relies on its user base to promote its vehicles and reward them in the process. Or at least, it used to.

At the core of the referral program, new buyers can use referral links from current owners when buying a new Tesla, and each party gets prizes.

The prizes have changed a lot over the years.

At the peak of the program, Tesla was giving away free new Roadsters to owners who accumulated enough referrals.

An impressive number of people ended up reaching that level, and we estimated that Tesla would be giving away about 80 new Roadsters on top of giving out significant discounts to many more.

CEO Elon Musk later announced that Tesla would be killing its referral program due to cost concerns associated with all those Roadsters, which the automaker has yet to deliver.

Tesla didn’t end up killing the program, but it did reduce the prizes to 1,000 free Supercharging miles on both sides of the transaction, though that went away, too. Over the last two years, the only referral incentives left were for solar products.

More recently, Tesla relaunched the referral program as the Loyalty Program, or just “Loot Box” since it is how it appears in its app.

The company changed it so that you now earn credit points when you refer someone or you buy a product with a referral code. Those credit points can then be redeemed for items in Tesla’s store or free Supercharger miles.

In North America, the program only applied to solar products until now.

Tesla has relaunched the program for electric cars with now new Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X referrals earning points:

Credits earned by referrers and buyers can still be redeemed for free Supercharger miles or items in its online store, but now Tesla also added a Cybertruck raffle.

With 500 credits, you can buy an entry into Tesla’s Cybertruck raffle.

So someone buying a new Tesla Model Y with a referral code right now would get three entries in the Cybertruck raffle or 500 miles of free Supercharging.

Electrek’s Take

Just last month, I wrote about how Tesla should bring back its referral program for vehicles as a demand trigger rather than keep dropping prices.

But I also argue that Tesla should deliver the Roadster, which was the biggest prize for the previous program. Otherwise, the program doesn’t have as much credibility if you are known for not delivering prizes.

However, I think the Cybertruck is much closer to production than the Roadster. So it is a safer bet.

I won’t spam my referral code, but if I helped you decide to buy a Tesla vehicle or product, you can reach out to me for a referral code at fred@electrek.co.