Tesla, a company known for not using conventional marketing strategies, appears to have launched its first full social media campaign. X users reported seeing ads on different platforms worldwide, including X, which is, of course, owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. However, advertisements have been popping up on YouTube and Facebook.
As Tesla ventures into social media advertising, the company is simultaneously preparing for a year that CEO Elon Musk anticipates might see lower growth rates. During the most recent earnings call, Musk provided insights into Tesla's strategic direction for 2024, emphasizing the company's position between two major growth waves. Despite this forecast, Tesla is actively implementing strategies to maintain its momentum and ensure long-term success.
A Strategic Shift in Tesla's Strategy
Although not the first instance of Tesla delving into advertising, the company's recent move to include social media platforms marks a significant expansion of its marketing efforts. Previously, Tesla tested the waters with targeted Google ads, primarily in the UK and the US, focusing on search engine visibility. These initial steps were indicative of Tesla's cautious approach to advertising, aiming to gauge its effectiveness without committing substantial resources.
The recent earnings call shed light on Tesla's advertising and educational campaigns' preliminary results and return on investment. Tesla did have a digital campaign underway at the end of 2023 that was highly targeted and aimed at driving awareness about the brand and its products.
These campaigns, particularly one in Texas, reached approximately 10 million unique viewers and generated close to 0.5 million visits to Tesla's website, many of whom were first-time visitors. This data suggests that digital advertising can significantly enhance Tesla's visibility and address misconceptions about EVs, including concerns about safety and affordability.
This expansion aligns with Musk's comments during the earnings call about the need to increase awareness in regions where Tesla's market share is low. Using a mix of social media platforms, Tesla can tailor its messaging to different audiences, ensuring its campaigns resonate with diverse consumers.
The Impact of Digital Advertising on EV Awareness
The strategic focus on digital advertising comes at a crucial time for Tesla and the EV industry. As competition intensifies and market dynamics evolve, Tesla must recognize the importance of addressing affordability, enhancing awareness, and correcting misconceptions about electric vehicles. The company's digital campaigns highlight EVs' benefits, such as their environmental impact, advanced technology, safety features, and increasingly competitive pricing.
By leveraging social media platforms' reach and targeting capabilities, Tesla can effectively communicate these messages to a global audience, potentially accelerating the shift toward sustainable transportation. This approach also allows Tesla to gather valuable consumer behavior and preferences data, informing future marketing and product development strategies.
New Buyers While Keeping the Loyal Customers Happy
The advertising campaign comes just one day after the company announced a significant offering to entice current owners to upgrade. Notably, Tesla now allows the transfer of Full Self-Driving (FSD) packages and supercharging benefits to new vehicles purchased by existing customers. The new cars must be delivered by the end of March.
While Tesla prepares for a year of potentially lower growth in 2024, its strategic moves highlight its proactive approach to overcoming challenges. By focusing on innovation, enhancing customer value propositions, and leveraging social media platforms for advertising, Tesla is taking comprehensive steps to ensure its resilience and long-term success.
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest Tesla news, upcoming features and software updates.
While Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update brought many new features, including Apple Watch Support, Cross Traffic Alerts, Weather Overlays, Search Along Route, and others, there are also several smaller items in this update that didn’t get much attention.
Ambient Lighting Now Affects Easter Eggs
The 2024+ Model 3 and Cybertruck both come equipped with ambient lighting, and Tesla is now taking advantage of this custom lighting feature by incorporating it into several easter eggs.
Rainbow Road: If you head over to Apps > ToyBox > Rainbow Road, you’ll find a new option available that allows the ambient lighting in the vehicle to also change shades while Rainbow Road is active. The Rainbow Road easter egg is a tribute to the iconic course course in Nintendo’s Mario Kart.
Check out the feature in action below:
🇮🇹 Con l’aggiornamento di Natale, quando attiviamo la pista arcobaleno, anche i LED interni diventeranno arcobaleno. Questa è una novità non documentata, scovata da un utente di TESLERS (chiaramente riguarda le Model 3 Highland)
Santa Mode: Just in time for Christmas, Tesla has improved Santa Mode by cycling the ambient lighting between Christmas colors. Similar to Rainbow Road, the use of ambient lighting for the easter egg is optional and can be enabled under Apps > ToyBox > Santa Mode.
When using Santa Mode with ambient lighting turned on, the lights will cycle just between Christmas colors, red, green and white, instead of the full rainbow. There’s a video of the feature below:
The Model S and Model X vehicles that support Steam gaming are receiving a Steam app update in the holiday update as well. This update could end up being very interesting, but for now Tesla says that the SteamOS, which also runs on Valve’s Steam Deck has been updated to version 3.6.
Valve outlines a wide range of fixes and improvements in their release notes for version 3.6, but Tesla simply states that the OS update includes performance enhancements and improved game compatibility.
The SteamOS hasn’t been updated on the Model S and X for quite a while, so we believe there may be more to this besides performance improvements and fixes. We’ll be looking to share some insights into this in the near future.
So, there you have it—three new features in the Holiday update that have mostly gone under the radar. While they may not apply to everyone, there are plenty of other cool features in the Holiday Update, like the arrival of Dynamic Road Closure Routing and Nearby Parking, that are coming to every vehicle, so go check out the full release notes.
At the 2023 Q3 Earnings Call, Tesla provided an update on its next-generation model, what many are referring to as the “Model 2” or “Model Q.” Although the actual model name is yet to be determined, it is known internally as Redwood.
During the 2024 Shareholder Meeting, Musk again mentioned the upcoming model, saying that Tesla is working on new products, including a more affordable vehicle and a larger SUV.
While we know the next-gen vehicle is aimed at the $25k to $30k USD market, we now have some new information thanks to a new report out of China.
Launch & Price
According to the Chinese outlet CNMO Technology News (Sina Finance), Travis Axelrod, Tesla’s Head of Investor Relations, announced plans to launch a new model. Axelrod shared this update while addressing senior corporate investors at an investor conference hosted by Deutsche Bank on December 5, 2024.
The goal of Project Redwood, internally dubbed “Model Q” by Deutsche Bank, is to achieve a post-subsidy price of under $30,000 USD. With the Federal EV Rebate potentially expiring next year, this suggests that the Model Q’s starting price will be around $30,000 USD. For comparison, the Model 3 currently starts at $42,490 in the U.S.
We previously reported that Tesla has already been speaking to suppliers and is looking to begin volume production of the vehicle sometime around June 2025. Of course, prototyping is still necessary, but we haven’t seen any signs of Tesla testing a new vehicle since spotting the Cybercab on the streets ahead of We, Robot.
Specs
The Model Q will supposedly be about 15% smaller and 30% lighter than the Model 3, with an approximate length of 3,988mm, or 157 inches. For scale, the Mini is 157 inches, while the Model 3 is 185 inches, so it’s fairly compact.
The battery will also be smaller to match the vehicle’s smaller size as Tesla tries to reduce the vehicle’s price while maintaining a similar range as its other vehicles. Tesla is expected to offer two models—a single-motor RWD model and a Long-Range Dual-Motor AWD variant.
The lower trim level will include a 53 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, while the AWD version is expected to include a 75 kWh LFP battery. The report says that the vehicle will be able to travel up to 500 km (310 miles) on a single charge, but it’s not clear whether this will be for the more efficient RWD version or the AWD variant.
Given the vehicle’s weight reduction compared to the Model 3, this type of range is likely for the lower trim level.
Variant
Motors
Battery Size
Estimated Range
RWD
1
53 kWh (LFP)
310 miles (500km)?
AWD
2
75 kWh (LFP)
?
There’s no news yet on the price of the AWD version, but we expect it to be about $5,000 more expensive than the RWD variant.
Once the vehicle ramps up in production, Tesla intends to produce about 10,000 of these per week globally or about 500,000 per year. As Tesla mentioned during one of their previous earnings calls, this next-gen vehicle will be built using Tesla’s current assembly lines with minimal changes. This should allow for a smoother and more predictable production ramp. While Tesla still plans to use its new unboxed assembly process, it’s now saving it for the robotaxi.
We’re expecting Juniper to launch early next year, as production has supposedly already begun at Giga Shanghai, at least on a limited prototyping basis. If the rollout matches the Model 3 Highland refresh, we’ll see Juniper arrive in China first and then make its way to North America and Europe by the end of 2025. The performance variants should launch in early 2026, after the standard models.
If you’re excited about Juniper, so are we! Check out our wishlist of features for Tesla’s Model Y refresh, and see everything we know so far.
![Tesla Updates Santa Mode & Rainbow Road to Use Ambient Lighting and Updates SteamOS [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.webp/bd6dd7459fc8963516a33efd3bd54466/ambient-lighting-santa-mode-rainbow.jpg)
![Tesla Builds Cybertruck Tunnel While Production Lines Pause [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2024/cybertruck-tunnel.webp/822a2c10124f46fe13e0d45cefdd9d33/cybertruck-tunnel.jpg)
![Impressive Tesla FSD Videos: Making Room for Vehicles & Mastering Tight Maneuvers [WATCH]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/2023/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg/9c0bfda120e9fecc4ddb111b350565ac/fsd-beta-vis-3.jpg)
![Video Reveals the Cybertruck's Unique User Interface [Video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2023/cybertruck-ui-1_300w.jpg)
![Andrej Karpathy considers returning to Tesla to work on Optimus [video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2022/karpathy-podcast_300w.jpg)
