Tesla kills referral programs for cars and solar panels
If you were hoping to score a few thousand Supercharging miles from Tesla referrals, we’re afraid you may already be too late. In a notice on its website spotted by Electrek, Tesla said that “vehicle products and solar panels are no longer eligible for Referral awards” as of September 18th. The company’s only active program at the moment is for the Solar Roof, which awards referrers with monetary rewards of up to $500 and free Powerwalls.
Tesla’s referral program has changed tremendously over the years. The automaker used to promise new Roadsters for top referrers and up to six months of free Supercharging. That eventually became too expensive to be sustainable, so the company decided to axe the program. Tesla introduced a new one with more reasonable rewards shortly after that, though, promising at least 1,000 miles of free Supercharging.
When it relaunched the program with updated terms, the company said that it “heard from… customers that the Referral Program was one of their favorite reasons to tell their friends about Tesla.” It’s unclear if it would come back again this time for the same reason, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it does. Take note, however, that Tesla has yet to fulfill some of its bigger promises to referrers. As Electrek notes, it hasn’t delivered the Roadsters its top referrers earned yet, and people have been complaining on online forums about not receiving free Powerwalls and other rewards from years ago.
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