Electrek has learned that Tesla is now offering one year of free Supercharging to incentivize deliveries by the end of the year as it attempts another record quarter.
Yesterday, we reported on Elon Musk writing in an email to employees that Tesla is seeing strong demand but the automaker needs to increase production fast in order to deliver on expectations.
As we previously reported, Tesla is currently in the middle of its end-of-year delivery push as it aims to deliver a record number of vehicles this quarter to achieve 500,000 deliveries in 2020.
The automaker needs to deliver over 181,000 vehicles this quarter in order to achieve this goal. That’s more than 40,000 vehicles over its last quarterly delivery record.
Now we learn that despite Tesla apparently seeing strong demand, the automaker added a new incentive for buyers.
Electrek has learned that Tesla authorized today its sale staff in North America to give one year of free unlimited Supercharging for undelivered Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The automaker wrote in a meme seen by Electrek:
“Effective December 12 to December 31st, all undelivered Model 3sand Model Y vehicles (excluding Model 3 Standard Range) that deliver by December 31st will receive one year of Free Supercharging.”
Tesla used to offer free Supercharging as a referral award and it has periodically used the incentive to boost deliveries at the end of quarters.
Last quarter, we reported that Tesla briefly offered an extra 1,000 free Supercharging miles to deliver cars by the end of the year.
Electrek’s Take
At first glance, some might think that Tesla is sending mixed messages.
Elon says that demand is strong, but now Tesla adds an incentive to help deliver more vehicles.
The key word here is “deliver”. Tesla is indeed seeing strong demand, but it is trying to give incentives to buyers to take delivery of their cars by the end of the year.
Tesla, unlike other automakers, owns the entire distribution system and it has a big effect on the automaker’s financials since it can’t recognize revenue until vehicles are delivered and it spent the money upfront to make those vehicles.
It results in Tesla pushing hard every quarter to reduce its inventory and deliver as many vehicles as possible toward the end of the quarter.
So even if Tesla has the orders in place, sometimes, it’s difficult to lineup deliveries with buyers due to availability, trade-in timing, or whatever other reasons.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
