Tesla has increased its end-of-quarter delivery incentive to offer 10,000 free Supercharging miles to Tesla owners who trade in for a new vehicle by the end of the month.
It has become standard for Tesla to offer extra incentives for customers to take delivery by the end of every quarter. These incentives are now often referred to as “end-of-quarter incentives”.
Sometimes, they take the form of direct discounts or free features, like a 3-month subscription to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving package or free Supercharging miles.
Lately, Tesla has been offering customers who take delivery of a new Model S, Model X or Model Y by tMarch 31, 2024 5,000 miles of free Supercharging on their new vehicle.
Today, Tesla announced that Tesla owners who trade-in for a new car by the end of the quarter will get an extra 5,000 miles for a total of 10,000 miles:
Customers who trade in a vehicle by March 31, 2024, will receive 5,000 miles of free Supercharging when leasing a new vehicle or a total of 10,000 free Supercharging miles for cash or finance purchases.
This new incentive also applies to leasing, but not the original 5,000 miles, which is available to non-Tesla owners who buy a new car cash or through financing.
Supercharging miles will expire two years after the date of delivery.
Tesla incentivizes deliveries by the end of the quarter to limit the amount of inventory on hand. Since Tesla is one of the few direct-to-consumer automakers and doesn’t sell its cars to dealerships, it owns them all the way until the customer takes delivery.
This means that if Tesla has a vehicle on hand at the end of a quarter, it spent tens of thousands of dollars to build it, but it doesn’t recognize any revenue for it even if it is already sold to a customer. Therefore, it can look really bad on its income statement at the end of the quarter.
Electrek’s Take
I’d be curious to see internal numbers at Tesla about how effective free Supercharging miles are at boosting sales.
10,000 miles sounds like a lot, and it is, but with only two years to use them, you probably won’t use them all unless you are planning a lot of big road trips or if you use your car for Uber.
Most of the charging happens at home for most people.
Even if you use them all, the incentive is probably worth about $800 to $1,500 depending on where you are located or where you plan to drive as Supercharger costs vary greatly based on the location.