Supercharger gift cards

[DTB]

Hello,

I’m starting this thread here because I think that this is potentially a lot more relevant to Tesla Inc financially than anywhere else.

Let me get to the point directly: I think that Tesla should start selling supercharger gift cards...and ideally, they should do it before Thanksgiving and Christmas (or Hanukkah).

I think that most financial analysts are not quite yet understanding the power of the supercharger network. I’ll leave it up to them to discover it in a few months...However, if I was Tesla, I would push the envelope a bit further and allow people to buy each other supercharger gift cards. I have relatives getting their new car and I was looking for something to buy them for the occasion, this is where I got the idea.

This would be extra money in the bank for Tesla. Instead of just suffering from trying to collect people by locking their supercharger access once the balance due is passed -50$, they would have some other accounts that actually have some extra money waiting to be spent (some maybe with up to 100$) safely stowed in Tesla’s coffers.

When you count that about 100k model3s will be driving around very soon and probably 1M in a few years, if each of them were to be offered only a 25$ gift card, that’s 25M$ sitting there, generating interest or being put to good use...(i.e. shutting up even more the shorts that are complaining about cash flow)

My suggestion would be to have the possibility to offer 25$, 50$ Or 100$ gift cards that people could add to their account. With the recent referral changes, Tesla’s systems are already setup to handle credits so adding this feature by Thanksgiving shouldn’t be impossible...

What do you think?

 

[ewoodrick]

First, a recent 1800 mile trip only cost $36. Supercharging isn't a big dew.
Next, they tie it to a credit card. I use, they debit, again not a big deal.

 

[DTB]

I agree with you that having it linked to a credit card is easy enough. My point is just that they could easily have 25$ or even 50$ per car of additional cashflow. I used 1M cars as an example but once they hit 2M or more cars, I’ll let you do the math . That’s a lot of money for which just the interests would be sufficient enough to cover for supercharger maintenance fees.

 

[cpa]

I am not sure that today Tesla earns any interest on its demand accounts. If they do, it is likely very small--smaller than the pittance banks offer individuals. Commercial businesses utilize a lot of bank resources to process the sheer volume of deposits, wires, credit cards and processing fees, debits, checks written, and who knows what else. Most large companies have a complex cash management network. Throw in foreign currency accounts in euros, pounds sterling, Swiss francs, yuan, yen, Australian dollars, and there is even more complexity.

I do not know how seamless it would be for Tesla to maintain another general ledger account for "Prepaid Supercharging." Tesla would have to design a program that would track sales (Card 134Y84J2 has $50.) Debit cash and credit some liability account. Then, six weeks later, the card is used and $5.88 of electricity is charged to the card. Debit the liability account and credit Supercharging income. Somehow this card would have to be tied to the Supercharger network so that the user would have to input the card number from the touchscreen, or have the card linked to a specific Tesla. Could it be transferable between cars? Could it be reloaded? How easy would it be for the owner of the card to know how much money remains on the card? Would unused dollars be refundable or transferable to another card?

Sure, it is always nice to be able to gin up another sales idea to increase cash flow. But this idea might be too expensive or cumbersome to operate. And it might clog up the already overworked toll-free number when users are unclear or suddenly run out of money on the card and want to prepay for more use.

A few years ago when Model S60 did not have free, unlimited Supercharging standard or as a paid option, there were some ideas tossed around on this site to allow those owners to purchase a limited amount of Supercharging for a limited period--like $30 for seven days or $50 for fourteen days, or $25 for 150 kWh. It did not gain much traction with most of the members at that time.

So, as with many things in life, simplest is best. Pay-as-you-go with a credit card on file. Easy, clean, the systems are already in place, and one less thing to cause unintended problems for owners and Tesla employees.

 

[DTB]

Thanks for your reply however I’m not sure about the complexity that you are expressing. I’m not a big fan of Apple vs Tesla comparisons but think of it as iTunes for Tesla. The gift card has a code that you apply to your Tesla account (not to the car itself). Not more complicated than that, with an option to enter the code in the car of course (with the money being applied to the Tesla account related to that car).

Keeping in mind that Tesla is planning to have “Pay as you drive” programs eventually, they must be already used to exchange rates and having money attached to our My Tesla accounts. Actually if I just think of all the deposits we did 2 years ago, 400,000 * 1000$ in all kinds if currency, I’m pretty sure that they are already setup to handle that . Therefore 2M * 50$ could be worth thinking about.

Last but not least, I’m not suggesting that the current functionality gets replaced, I’m just suggesting the possibility to have a credit to be added to the current process.