Tesla referrals win YouTuber a Roadster
US EV brand fan to get "100 per cent discount" on next-gen Tesla Roadster after he referred $6.5 million worth of salesYouTube star and Teslanomics host, Ben Sullins, has announced that he will be given a next-generation Tesla Roadster for free after 55 customers used his referral code to buy a Model S or Model X.
The code, posted on both his website and YouTube channel, helped the buyers unlock discounts up to $1000 and lucrative free access to the US car-maker's Supercharger network, but by using the unique referral number it also rewarded Sullins himself.
Previously, the US blogger claimed he's won prizes like the opportunity to drive The Boring Company's tunneling machine and a VIP invite to the forthcoming pure-electric big-rig unveiling.
But after five successful purchases using his code the Teslanomics founder unwittingly unlocked a 'secret level' in the loyalty program that saw two per cent knocked off the purchase price of the forthcoming Roadster for every five successful referrals.
Fast-forward to 2017 and with a total of 55 referrals Sullins says that thanks to his code (which generated more than $US5 million ($A6.5m) worth of sales for Tesla, he is now eligible to a 100 per cent discount on the second-gen pure-electric Porsche Boxster rival.
It's not known exactly when the sporty little pure-electric drop-top is scheduled to arrive.
That would an interesting target. Would, of course, only count if capable of doing so right off the production line with street legal tires.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2017
A Twitter exchange in June confirmed the roadster was still in development. Tesla founder Elon Musk said his engineers were targeting a 0-60mph (0-97km/h) time of less than two seconds on 'street legal' tyres.
The original two-seat Tesla Roadster, made during 2008-2012, was based on the Lotus Elise, with the British sports car maker helping to design and develop its chassis.
Tesla built less than 2500 of the pure-electric roadsters, which could hit 100km/h in around 3.7 seconds.
In 2016, the US car-maker announced it had begun offering existing owners a battery upgrade that replaces the original 53kWh lithium-ion cells with a more powerful 80kWh battery that boosted the range from 390km to 547km.
As well as boosting the roadster's range, Tesla also offered a retrofit aero upgrade that was claimed to reduce the drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.31Cd.
Unfortunately, the battery upgrade (and aero tweaks), which is also available to Australian owners, costs an incredible $38,000.
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