Tesla tempts owners to upgrade at the end of their leases with Ludicrous, Self-driving, and dual motor

Three years into its in-house lease program, Tesla has now thousands of owners coming off of their Model S leases every quarter. The company is trying to take advantage of those opportunity to offer upgrades to its loyal customer base and replenish its pre-owned fleet in the process.

They started sending out emails to owners at the end of their lease with a new landing page offering more end-of-lease options.

A standard Tesla lease is 36 months and 3 years ago, Tesla was only selling the Model S and it had yet to introduce the first generation Autopilot or dual motor. The Model X wasn’t available at that time.

Therefore, the first option that Tesla offers to those coming off their lease is to upgrade to a new Tesla:

“Model S is better than ever. Over the last three years, we’ve added new features like updated styling and interior, Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive, Ludicrous Speed, Self-Driving hardware and more range. We also introduced Model X, the safest, fastest and most capable SUV on the road. View local inventory to take delivery as soon as this week.”

The other option that Tesla offers is to sell the vehicle:

“It’s easy to fall in love with your Tesla, so we made it easy for you to keep it. You may purchase your Tesla before your lease ends, or at point of maturity. Your Tesla is protected by a 4-year or 50,000 miles/80,000 km (whichever occurs first) New Vehicle Limited Warranty. The New Vehicle Limited Warranty may be extended to 8 years or 100,000 miles. In addition, your Tesla is protected by an 8-year or unlimited miles Battery and Drive Unit Limited Warranty.”

There are also two other options: temporarily extending the lease for another 6 months or of course, outright returning the vehicle.

Tesla started its resale value guarantee program, which has since ended, back in 2013 and the lease program started a year later. Those vehicles are only now starting to come back in decent numbers.

Over 1 out of 4 Tesla delivered today is being leased from the company and therefore, it is increasingly becoming important for Tesla to manage its end-of-lease experience now that it delivers ~25,000 vehicles per quarter.