Tesla has boosted its referral rewards to a $2,000 discount on new electric vehicles in the US, even its brand new Cybertruck.

In April, Tesla ended its referral program after it became much less popular under its latest “point system” that could be redeemed for only limited features and products.

The automaker brought it back in August with a more straightforward program that gives direct discounts on new cars for buyers and gives Tesla credits that can be applied to anything for referrers.

Now, Tesla has given the first boost to the program since bringing it back a few months ago.

In short, Tesla has boosted the discount new buyers get when purchasing a new Tesla vehicle through a referral link:

In the US, it’s now a $2,000 discount for new buyers on Tesla’s entire vehicle lineup.

Even the Cybertruck is $2,000 off and now basically starts at $78,000:

In Canada, Tesla also boosted the program, but it is available only on a few vehicles, namely Model Y, Model S, and Model X.

The discount is now $2,600 CAD when using a referral code:

It’s not too surprising not to see the Cybertruck on the list in Canada as Tesla only just now started deliveries in the market, but it’s more surprising not to see the Model 3. It looks like Tesla feels it has enough demand for the vehicle in the market not to offer any referral discount.

This boosted referral program is only the latest of many sale incentive examples that Tesla has put in place this quarter to try to achieve record deliveries.

n Europe, the incentives include a year of free Supercharging and heavy discounts on inventory vehicles.

In the US, there are also good inventory discounts, 3 months of free Supercharger and Full Self-Driving subscription, FSD transfer, and more.

More recently, Tesla also slashed the lease price of the base Model Y and even offered discounted home charging under Tesla Electric for those taking delivery of new vehicles.

And everywhere, Tesla is heavily subsidizing loans with lower interest rates.

Electrek’s Take

This is the most discounts and sale incentives that I’ve have ever seen Tesla implement in a single quarter. It’s clear that the automaker is going all out to try to get the demand for 515,000 deliveries in the quarter.

I can’t lie. These are some great deals. Hard to pass in some cases.

I am even sweetening the deal myself locally. For people in Quebec who order and take delivery this quarter with my referral code, I’m offering a free Universal Tesla Connector for your home charging needs. I still have 4 available. First come, first save basis. You simply have to reach out to me right after delivery so I can confirm on my side that you used the code.

Extended-range EVs are having their moment. And now Lotus is abandoning its strategy to become an all-electric brand by 2028 and shifting over to extended-range plug-in hybrid models starting in 2026. Here’s why.

Extended-range EVs, or EREVs, have become a siren call to automakers struggling to reach buyers with pure electric vehicles, serving as a sort of middle ground between kind of an electric car but also a plug-in hybrid, helping to break through to drivers still worried about getting stranded with no charge. So that, too, is where Lotus is going, with the Geely-owned UK brand saying that rolling out extended-range hybrids globally will help it reach its 2026 target of 30,000 sales. It’s a major departure from their earlier vision.

Lotus, has been mixing in some “lifestyle” EVs, including an SUV, to its sports-car lineup, but has struggled to meet its volume targets, Automotive News Europe reports. The problem Lotus says is that luxury buyers are reluctant to go full-electric.

Lotus says it sold 7,617 cars through September, including the Eletre SUV and Emeya large sedan, both all-electric vehicles – as well as it Emira sports car, once said to be the brand’s last ICE model.

Lotus also sells a full-electric hypercar, the Eveya.

But the company’s target of 12,000 sales this year is “definitely challenging,” Lotus CEO Feng Qingfeng said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call last week.

At the Guangzhou Motor Show in China, he said: “Luxury car engines are already very powerful, and the driving experience is quite similar, with eight-cylinder and 12-cylinder engines performing well,” according to the report.

Shifting to hybrids, the company hopes, will be the solution, with the brand eyeing the production of a “Super Hybrid” technology with ultra-fast plug-in charging. The electric motor will paired with a turbocharged combustion engine to extend the overall range to 680 miles (1,094 km).

Of course, an interesting motivator, too, is that hybrids are not affected by tariffs by the European Union on BEVs imported from China, with both the Eletre and Emeya built in China. In Europe, Geely’s BEVs are subject to a 28.8% duty under new EU tariff regulations, designed to counter what has been deemed as unfair government subsidies from China to its automakers.

Porsche has also announced that it will keep building ICE models across its model range to “meet customer demand,” shifting away from its all-electric plans.

Photos: courtesy of Lotus

If you’re an electric vehicle owner, charge up your car at home with rooftop solar panels. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing on solar, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here.

Rivian invited us to come up and drive its new tri-motor “R1 Tri” spec vehicle through the hills of Malibu. Here’s what we thought about the drive.

The event was out of Rivian’s Venice Space, which was showing off the R2 and R3X as part of its R2 tour. But it also hosted auto journalists for a drive of the R1 Tri up PCH and through the famously snaky roads in the hills above Malibu, CA, and a roundtable discussion with Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe (which we’ve posted some insights from, about the VW/Rivian partnership and Rivian’s soon-to-be-open Adventure Network).

The new tri-motor Rivian, which Rivian is simply calling the R1 Tri, is a mid-spec addition to its post-refresh product line. It sits between the base model dual motor and the higher-spec quad motor (Rivian has had a quad-motor before, but cut that option when it brought motor development in-house, though it will return in 2025), occupying what one engineer told us is a “Goldilocks” position – not too much, not too little.

Although “not too much” is relative here, because the Tri still offers a whopping 850 horsepower – which is more than, well, just about anything. It may not be as much as the 1,025hp Quad Max, coming in 2025, which shattered records at Pike’s Peak, but 850 is still a lot of go-go-go.

That’s enough to bring you from 0-60 in 2.9 seconds, along with the debut of Launch Mode to help drivers coax maximum performance out of their vehicle. Launch mode will track your times, top speed, g-forces, and even capture your launch with the vehicle’s cameras (since we were on public roads shared with traffic and cyclists, we didn’t test this). It also utilizes Rivian’s cute “Gear Guard” mascot for a fun animation.

The Tri works with 1 motor in front and 2 in the rear, which means you have more control at the rear with two motors that are able to work independently of each other. This could come up in off-road situations with difficult traction, and also offers performance benefits in terms of torque vectoring on the axle that does most of the work during acceleration.

We drove the R1T truck, and in our drive on those narrow roads above Malibu, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to really stretch out that 850hp, at least not in a legal or safe manner. But we never felt even the slightest bit starved for power, zipping up hills and carrying the ~7,000lb curb weight along with us.

For such a large and heavy truck, the R1T was nevertheless impressively nimble. When the truck was in my co-driver’s hands, the rear end did feel jumpy a few times when going over slightly bumpy parts of the road – perhaps a different suspension mode might have helped with this.

While we tried several of the modes available, there are so many permutations of drive mode, suspension stiffness, ride height, steering response, regen mode and so on that it would probably take some time to really dial in the car to make it feel exactly like you want. I’m generally not a huge fan of different drive modes, though for some things like suspension and ride height it makes sense.

In terms of battery, the Tri comes equipped with Rivian’s Max size battery pack, which gives it 371 miles of range. Rivian says you can push this to 405 miles in “conserve” mode, but as usual, your mileage may vary.

These range numbers are both predicated on using road tires. Rivian also offers all-terrain tires with more off-road versatility, but these come with a penalty to efficiency, lowering range to 329 miles.

The Tri comes alongside the debut of Rivian’s new “Ascend” trim level, an interior with premium materials throughout and some additional new features, over and above the hundreds of changes that Rivian made alongside this year’s Gen 2 refresh.

For now all Tris will come in Ascend trim, which includes Rivian Premium Audio, an upgraded 960 watt Dolby Atmos sound system, a darkout package that replaces chrome badges with darker-colored ones, a 150PSI air compressor with a hose that can reach all four tires, and Rivian’s dynamic glass roof which becomes electrochromically opaque at the tap of a button if you want to block the sun.

The interior felt plenty comfortable and obviously spacious for all the time we were in it, though it’s not as directly comfort-oriented as some of the other large EVs we’ve tried, like the Volvo EX90 and the Hyundai Ioniq 9 (the latter was a concept interior, though).

The Rivian still gets points for being exceptionally utilitarian though, with plenty of pockets and storage spaces throughout. This is one reason why Rivian excels in customer satisfaction, because it’s just such an easy vehicle to use.

In the end, the R1 Tri doesn’t revolutionize anything about what Rivian was already doing, but just adds another option for owners who want more power and capability… and are willing to pay extra for it.

The new R1 Tri-Motor is available now, with R1T starting at $99,900 and R1S starting at $105,900 at Rivian.com. Deliveries of inventory vehicles look to have a 1-6 week lead time currently, so should be available by the end of the year – but custom configurations are quoted with a 8-12 week lead time, and thus seem unlikely that they’ll deliver by the end of the year.

Charge your electric vehicle at home using rooftop solar panels. Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. It’s free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. – ad*