Lifestyle
Should Tesla have ended its Referral Program?
Tesla’s long-running and generous referral program came to an end on February 2, with CEO Elon Musk citing too much cost to the company’s vehicles, especially the Model 3. The system that rewarded so many with so much was finally concluded, but should it have been?
Teslanomics host and Tesla owner-enthusiast Ben Sullins noted in a recent video that the electric carmaker maybe – just maybe – made the wrong decision when it retired its referral program. Tesla’s referral program actually compares favorably to initiatives of other carmakers like General Motors when it comes to return of investment, notes Ben in his analysis. Case in point: GM spent around $3.24 billion in advertising in 2017 versus its auto revenue of $146 billion during the year. This translates to a 45x ROI, meaning that for every dollar the automaker spent on advertising, GM got $45 in revenue.
Tesla, on the other hand, has not released the actual costs of the referral program, but considering the price of the approximately 160 free next-gen Roadsters that Tesla will give out, the Teslanomics host estimates the program to have cost Tesla around $32 million, at least considering the costs associated with the program’s most prolific prize. Compared with the $17.63 billion in auto revenue that Tesla reported for 2018 in its recent Update Letter, the company’s $32 million cost for the free Roadsters actually gives a healthy 550x ROI. This means that for every dollar Tesla spent on the referral program’s largest prize, the company received $550 back in return.
Ben also noted that among automakers in the United States, Tesla is among the ones with the least advertising spending per vehicle sold, at just around $106. This is lower than Porsche’s $161 advertising spending per car, and far below Volkswagen’s $1,211 spending per vehicle sold.
Ultimately, the Tesla owner-enthusiast concluded that it would probably be best for the electric car maker to bring back its referral program, though in a more balanced form. This would actually be a pretty good idea, considering that the story of Tesla’s referral system is a classic tale of a good idea that eventually became unsustainable in the face of growth. A great way to illustrate this would probably be a poll that Teslarati ran after Elon Musk’s announcement last month. Based on the results of our poll, the majority of voters were actually on board with the referral program’s retirement.
Tesla’s Referral Program is coming to an end …
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 19, 2019
It should be noted that Ben and other social media influencers have helped spearhead tremendous word-of-mouth sales for Tesla, while also leveraging their following as a way to gain the necessary referrals to win the upcoming supercar. Some twice. Apart from this, the Teslanomics host’s computations for the rewards system only includes the price of the Roadster and doesn’t take into account other factors connected to the program, such as logistics, developments costs, and other time value costs involved in the production and fulfillment of prizes.
It would be easy to point fingers at who or what is really responsible for the end of Tesla’s generous referral program. It could be influencers who utilized their platforms of choice to refer dozens or even hundreds of new customers. It could also be the Model 3 owners, whose lower-margin vehicles practically flooded the system, rendering it unsustainable. Overall, the fall of the referral program is simply due to Tesla’s inability to balance its rewards system. Perhaps capping the prizes at a point (stopping at one Roadster would have been a great idea, or giving lower-tier prizes for lower-margin vehicles) would have solved the issue. Nevertheless, it would be up to Tesla now if it decides to roll out a similar, more balanced program in the near future.
Watch Ben Sullins’ take on the retirement of Tesla’s referral program in the video below.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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