Tesla launches its revamped referral program

Tesla has revamped its referral system

Not a Tesla App

Tesla has filled the Loot Box back up in the app, which now contains Tesla's revamped referral program. The reintroduction comes less than a month after Tesla launched a referral program in China called Treasure Box. We saw this coming in October when Tesla updated some localized strings in its iOS update.

Tesla's updated referral program hands out credits instead of cash or prizes. The credits could then be used to purchase Tesla accessories such as vehicle chargers, t-shirts, shot glasses and other items you'd normally find in Tesla's online shop.

Vehicle Referrals

Although the program has been relaunched in the U.S., it did not bring back vehicle referrals as expected. At this time you are still limited to referring friends and family to Tesla's solar products.

Tesla put its vehicle referral program on hold in September of 2021. We expected Tesla to relaunch that program with its revamped loot box, but that hasn't been the case. It's not clear whether Tesla is going to bring back vehicle referrals at a later date.

Tesla will now list qualifying products in the Loot Box section of the app, under the Credits tab. In the U.S. qualifying products are currently limited to Tesla's Solar Roof and Solar Panels. Given that Tesla lists qualifying products in a separate tab and has room for additional products could mean that Tesla plans to alter qualifying products over time or based on a user's region. Tesla could also add or remove products based on demand.

Tesla's statement on its website leaves the referral system open to all Tesla products, not just solar. It states: “Our goal is to help Tesla owners share their passion for Tesla’s products and our mission — to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. As an owner, every time you bring a new friend or family member into the Tesla community, you and your friend both earn credits — you earn Referral Credits and your friend earns Buyer Credits. You also earn Loyalty Credits when you purchase additional qualifying Tesla products, as a thank you for being a loyal Tesla owner.”

Prizes

Here are some items available in the Loot Box:

• J1772 Wall Connector — 11,000 credits
• Wall Connector — 6,000 credits
• CCS Combo 1 Adapter — 5,000 credits
• 2,000 Supercharger Miles — 4,800 credits
• Model S/3/Y Pet Liner — 2,900 credits
• Men’s Raven Lightweight Hoodie — 2,000 credits
• Tesla Sipping Glasses — 1,750 credits
• Wall Connector Color Matched Faceplate — 1,500 credits
• Tesla Short Shorts — 1,469 credits
• Powered by the Sun License Plate Frame — 800 credits
• Let the Sun Shine Tee — 700 credits
• Solar Roof/Powerwall Tee — 700 credits

Solar products earn 6,000 credits and accumulate in your Loot Box under one amount. However, the credits do expire after 12 months unless you add more credits to your account. Each time new credits are added the expiration cycle restarts, giving you one year to use the credits or add more.

Shirts and glasses don’t compare to the Roasters that were part of previous referral programs. However, that may indicate how far the company has come. There was once a time when convincing friends to buy Tesla products was so difficult that the company had to offer extravagant prizes. Now, it’s a much easier sales pitch, and a T-shirt will suffice.

To access, open your app and tap on your profile image in the top right corner. There you will find Loot Box near the bottom of the screen, and when you tap on it, there is a button to share your referral code.

More About Tesla’s WiFi Garage Door Support, Its Cost and Features

How MyQ will be integrated in Tesla vehicles

MyQ

Tesla is getting ready to introduce WiFi garage door support to their vehicles through MyQ.

Since our article yesterday additional details have emerged about how MyQ will operate, which vehicles will be supported and whether there will be a cost to use the service. This information is based on a page that appeared briefly on MyQ's website but has since been removed.

Vehicles Supported

MyQ's website stated that support for their garage door openers would be coming to the Model 3 and Model Y. While this makes a lot of sense because those vehicles don't include a HomeLink module, we'd be surprised if Tesla didn't also add support for the Model S and Model X.

Cost

Let's get cost out of the way. Although MyQ does not charge a fee today to remotely open and close their garage doors, they do plan on charging a fee to use their devices in vehicles. This could be looked at similarly to how some services are free to use on a PC but require a subscription to use on your mobile phone.

The price posted on MyQ's website was a five-year plan for $179, which is still cheaper than Tesla's $350 installation cost for HomeLink.

Unfortunately, this removes a big benefit we thought MyQ would have over buying a HomeLink module for the Model 3 or Model Y. For Model S and Model X owners who already have HomeLink included in their vehicles, it may not make as much sense.

However, MyQ does provide some advantages over HomeLink.

Integration

The good news is that MyQ integration will be very similar to HomeLink, and better in some ways. What appears to be a rendering of the feature working in a Tesla was also posted to their website which shows off a screen very similar to HomeLink.

On the MyQ settings screen, you'll have a list of supported devices on the left side, such as garage doors, gates and possibly lights, but we haven't see any evidence of the latter yet.

On the right side, you'll see options pertaining to the device selected, such as its current state, whether the garage door should auto-open or close and the distance when the device should be triggered.

You'll also be able to have the vehicle fold in its mirrors when reaching the target location.

If you've used HomeLink, this should all look very familiar since it's almost exactly the same. However, there are a couple of differences that give the advantage to MyQ.

The first is that MyQ is a smarter system and it knows the state of your garage door. So if you're arriving home and the garage door is already open, it won't try to close it on you.

The other advantage is distance. Since MyQ works over the internet you'll be able to trigger the garage door or gate from further down the driveway, giving the door plenty of time to fully open before you arrive.

MyQ supports an array of devices, but it waits to be seen whether there will be support for these additional devices such as lights and door locks.

Tesla expected to add HD radar to vehicles next month

Tesla discloses new hardware, is it HD radar?

@Taka87

Tesla requested more time for details to be kept confidential, and in doing so, everyone now knows something is up. A document dated November 18, 2022, appeared on Twitter on December 6. It’s from Tesla Inc. and addressed to the Federal Communications Commission. In the brief letter, Certification Engineer Cindy Li requests a 60-day extension of a previous agreement to keep a device secret. This mysterious letter set the Tesla sphere on fire with speculation to find out what is the secret device.

All we know from the letter is that model number 1541584 includes a user manual, internal photos, external photos, and test setup photos. Whatever this device is, it was going to be made public by the FCC on December 7, 2022. Tesla asked for an extension because the device will not be ready until mid-January 2023. The company wants to “avoid any unnecessary disclosure and competitive harm before our product launch…”

The poster of the letter, Twitter user @Taka87 reached out to well-known Tesla hacker @greentheonly, for some insight. The response: … something potentially major planned for mid-January which is just a bit over a month away... Like something that coincides with a sensor suite change.

That opens the door for the return of radar, which was removed last year and/or ultrasonic sensors, which Tesla just scrapped in October when it made the call to go completely with Tesla Vision. At that time, Tesla said in a statement: With today's software, this approach gives Autopilot high-definition spatial positioning, longer range visibility and the ability to identify and differentiate between objects. As with many Tesla features, our occupancy network will continue to improve rapidly over time.

There has also been a lot of speculation about HW4, where a high-resolution radar is believed to be part of the full self-driving sensor suite. HW4 goes as far back as the 2021 A.I. Day when Elon Musk said a new FSD computer would come out with the Cybertruck. This upgrade is now reportedly being developed by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). It is expected to be much more powerful than the current hardware by as much as four times.

Elon has also previously commented on HD radar, saying "A very high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar does not exist. I mean vision with high-res radar would be better than pure vision."

An unidentified part, closely resembling a new radar was found on Tesla's Parts Catalog back in September by @GreenTheOnly. This mysterious item was marked but suspiciously not given a name, a part number or a description. However, given Green's experience with the inner workings of these vehicles, Green believes it is a new Tesla radar. In a follow-up tweet, he doubled down on his stance, saying the part matches the high-resolution radar Tesla registered with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in June.

Fans recently spotted multiple Model 3 vehicles that had parts of the front and rear of the vehicle covered up. If Tesla is planning to add HD radar or change some of the vehicle's sensor suite, these vehicles may be testing exactly this.