Tesla Adds the Cybertruck to Its Referral Program

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In August, Tesla revamped its referral program to offer customers even more flexibility and value. Moving away from traditional credits, Tesla now provides gift cards that can be applied toward nearly any Tesla product, including new vehicles, Tesla service, and accessories.

Adjustments Following New Financing Options

This week, Tesla introduced an updated financing offer that includes 0% financing on the Model 3 and Model Y, even if you don’t buy FSD. During this time, Tesla also updated the referral program slightly for buyers. While referrers still earn $500 per successful referral, buyers now receive a $500 discount on the Model 3 and Model Y instead of $1,000 off. The Model S and Model X discounts remain unchanged, allowing buyers $1,000 off on these premium models. Although the Cybertruck was recently added to the FSD Transfer offer, it was still excluded from referrals at this time, meaning that buyers couldn’t get a discount off the truck, and referrers wouldn’t receive a referral bonus.

Cybertruck Joins the Referral Program

Earlier this month, Tesla launched the non-Foundation-Series Cybertruck, allowing buyers to buy the truck for as long as $79,990. Tesla also opened up the truck to everyone instead of only reservation holders. Now, Tesla is taking another step in aligning its vehicle incentives, and the Cybertruck joins the rest of the S3XY vehicles in the referral program in the United States.

Now, referrers can earn $500 for every Cybertruck referral, while buyers can take advantage of a $1,000 discount on their truck purchase.

Tesla’s updated referral program now applies to all vehicles, besides the Tesla Semi, which isn’t unexpected. We expect Tesla to also add the Cybertruck to the referral program in Canada in the future. Tesla owners can share their referral code with friends and family or can use it themselves when ordering a second Tesla.

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Tesla To Upgrade HW3 Cars if Needed: What To Expect

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At the Q3 2024 Investor Call, Elon Musk discussed the future of autonomy. One question that came up was what about FSD Hardware 3? Today, Hardware 3 has been lagging behind Hardware 4, now dubbed AI4.

Given what has been previously said at We, Robot, Elon and Tesla fully believed that autonomy - Unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi, would be possible on HW3. Now, that statement has been backtracked. Elon and Tesla’s top-notch engineers are no longer sure whether HW3 will be capable of meeting the expectations of a safe, autonomously driven vehicle.

With AI 5 entering into production in 2026, even AI4 has a short lease on production life. But what does that mean for HW3 vehicles today? Let’s dig in.

Tesla Will Upgrade HW3 If Needed

Elon has confirmed for the first time that if Tesla can not make autonomy work on HW3, they will upgrade the affected vehicles. That upgrade, of course, would be free for customers who purchased FSD on their HW3 vehicles. For the early Model 3 that came with Hardware 2.5, owners should also be able to get a free upgrade to newer hardware after they purchase FSD. Elon didn’t go into a lot of detail, but it’s not clear whether FSD subscribers would also get a free upgrade if needed, but it sounds like they would.

There are a few things to note here.

Elon didn’t provide a date for this potential future upgrade or any expectation of when HW3 will be officially considered legacy. Elon said that Tesla isn’t 100% sure whether FSD would be possible on HW3. Tesla’s approach to FSD will now be to make it work on HW4, then backport or find ways to make it work on HW3. At some point, it sounds like they may determine this to not be possible.

It’s in Tesla’s best interest financially to delay that decision as long as possible and instead move HW3 owners to AI4 or newer hardware through free FSD transfer opportunities.

However, if Tesla decides that HW3 doesn’t have enough compute power, there will always be a large number of vehicles that need to be upgraded. The Tesla drivetrain—motors and batteries—are built to last, and with less than 2% annual degradation being tracked by third parties, we can expect to see 2018 Model 3s still on the road in 2030 and beyond.

There is some chance that HW3 does not achieve a safety level that allows for unsupervised FSD

What’s the Upgrade?

Here’s the thing—Hardware 3 has lower-resolution cameras and uses a different wiring harness. AI4 and beyond use a unified harness and improved cameras. On the earnings call, Elon said that the upgrade would be an inference computer upgrade only.

That means better and faster processing and an improved FSD experience for users. It can also save Tesla money by having the AI team spend less time backporting FSD to HW3.

No Camera Upgrades

The unified wiring harness and the cameras in HW3 vehicles will remain since Tesla doesn’t see them hindering progress. The harness in HW3 vehicles isn’t capable of carrying more data or power, making upgrades to cameras or hardware difficult.

Tesla is already approaching autonomy-level capabilities on Hardware 3, so in their eyes, it's just a matter of improving the models and decision-making rather than increasing the raw pixel count coming in. According to Tesla, there will be no camera upgrades.

No Bumper Camera

We expect to see the front bumper camera added to more vehicles in the near future. The Cybercab and Cybertruck both already have front bumper cameras, while the Model Y Juniper Refresh has been seen with one as well. The Models S and X are also expecting a bumper camera whenever they get a refresh.

We’re not sure how much of an impact this will have on the robotaxi or Unsupervised FSD, but given that the refreshed Model 3 Highland didn’t come with the bumper camera last year alongside the Cybertruck, it may not be necessary.

HW 3.5 Upgrade

Many users are speculating that HW3 will be upgraded to HW4, but that is unlikely to be the case. As we mentioned, HW4 has a different wiring harness and cameras and those won’t easily fit into a HW3 vehicle due to space and power constraints.

Instead, Tesla will likely create a new inference chip and board made specifically for HW3 vehicles. It’ll need to be as powerful as HW4’s computer but much more efficient.

Tech progresses quickly, and what was once cutting-edge in 2017 is now left behind in the dust. So, this process of getting an HW4-capable computer working with the constraints of an HW3 vehicle will get easier the more time goes on. Tesla will likely start engineering the process in the future, using smaller transistors with a smaller process node, newer chipset-style processor designs, and overall better energy efficiency.

One thing to look out for is redundancy. This lets the FSD computer work on two separate chips, making sure they both reach the same conclusion before the vehicle acts on it. Redundancy helps with errors due to component failures, errors in processing or other issues. Hardware 3 was built with redundancy in mind, but Tesla has since removed it in order to use both nodes for processing power instead of redundancy. If and when Tesla releases the HW3 retrofit computer, it’ll be interesting to see if they include this back in.

When?

Right now, Tesla isn’t even sure whether an upgrade for HW3 will be needed. It sounds like that may be the case, but for now, Tesla isn’t for sure. They simply want to reassure owners that an upgrade will be available for HW3 if needed.

Tesla also doesn’t want to have to upgrade vehicles twice, so this upgrade will be the absolute last-ditch effort to get HW3 vehicles up to a safe level of autonomy. Even Tesla can’t be sure what it will take to completely solve autonomy yet, so they can’t build an upgrade until they know what it’ll take.

Don’t expect a HW3 upgrade before FSD is solved. Once Tesla knows the computing power and potentially other hardware required, then they can start thinking about retrofitting vehicles that don’t meet those requirements. Our best guess is that a HW3 upgrade is still years away.

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Tesla is Expanding the Free FSD Trial For Some [Updated]

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Tesla recently launched another round of FSD Trials for both new and current customers. Like before, the trial is for 30 days. However, Tesla is now sending out emails to users that the trial is being extended — letting users get FSD for about an extra week.

FSD is built into every Tesla vehicle, but it comes with a hefty up-front price tag or a more economical subscription of $99 USD/CAD per month. Since not every customer has tried out the latest version of FSD, Tesla is sending out more trials, hoping it will stick with some customers. A longer trial could do just that, as users start relying on it for everyday drives instead of just trying it out.

The timing of the trial and extension is also interesting. Thanksgiving takes place in the United States on November 28th, which means many of these trials will still be active during the holiday. Having this trial active during the Thanksgiving holiday could expose many non-Tesla owners to FSD.

Update: This article has been updated to accurately reflect the 30-day trial. Users who are receiving the trial now are getting a 30-day trial. For users who received the free trial earlier, Tesla has extended it by 30 days from the day of the email, which ends up being about an extra week.

FSD V12.5.4.1

When a user receives the FSD trial, Tesla updates their cars to 2024.32.10, which includes FSD V12.5.4.1, alongside hands-free driver monitoring with sunglasses, as well as Actually Smart Summon. Essentially, this is a big moment for Tesla to show off the latest FSD features to as many customers as possible.

At the recent Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Tesla also confirmed that the FSD rate has been up since the We, Robot event. This is likely due to more people seeing the robotaxi and the fact that there were no incidents while moving thousands of people. This, plus the recent success of FSD V12.5, which has a lower intervention rate than earlier versions, is opening more people up to the idea of autonomy.

Trial Extension

Tesla is announcing the trial extension to some users through email or a message in the Tesla app, so keep an eye out for both. The email and message are going out to users in North America who subscribe to FSD or don’t have FSD at all. It does not include customers who have bought FSD since those owners already have it for the life of the vehicle.

Tesla appears to be phasing in the FSD trial, as not all users have received it yet, but we expect most users to receive it in the next few weeks.

Enable the Trial

Once you receive the email, check your vehicle to see whether it asks you to activate FSD. Keep in mind that it may take up to a day for FSD to show up in your vehicle. Once it does, FSD will be activated on your current software version, which is likely FSD 12.3.6, but update 2024.32.10 should be available to you shortly after.

Although Tesla has moved away from the FSD Beta wording and it’s now officially called FSD (Supervised), always remember that this feature requires you to be constantly aware of your surroundings and to monitor the vehicle closely. While FSD will navigate, change lanes, and even take turns, it's imperative to stay attentive and cautious—the system is designed to assist, not replace, the driver.

What If I Already Subscribe

In the previous FSD trial earlier this year, Tesla also gave a free trial to Tesla owners who already subscribe to FSD. This essentially gives you a month of FSD for free. We have confirmed that this trial is functioning the same way, and users who are already paying for FSD are receiving a free month.

If you receive the free FSD trial message in the app, you should see the payment date for FSD skip a month so that you only get charged the next FSD payment after your free month ends.

How to Get the FSD Trial

You don’t need to do anything to get the free FSD trial. Tesla isn’t sending it to everyone at once, but most owners who live in the U.S. or Canada should receive the free 30-day trial soon.

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