San Francisco, Jan 18 (IANS): Electric car maker Tesla is putting an end to its customer referral programme in February that allowed owners to give their friends a referral code to get six months of free charging via the company's "Supercharger" network.

"The Tesla customer referral program will end on Feb 1. If you want to refer a friend to buy a Tesla and give them six months of free Supercharging, please do so before then," company owner and CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Thursday.

The move comes amid a larger cost-cutting effort by the electric car company.

In December, the company cut prices on "Model 3" in China and last week, it discontinued the lowest-priced versions of "Model S Sedan" and "Model X SUV", The Verge reported.

"The whole referral incentive system will end. It's adding too much cost to the cars, especially Model 3," Musk added.

The referral programme was launched in 2015 to turn the company's enthusiastic early adopters into real sales representatives -- where the new buyer got perks and the owner made the referral win a variety of prizes, the report said.

Recently the as part of the programme, the automaker changed the incentives to prizes for referrers and "Supercharger" access for new buyers.

According to media reports, the referral programme had recently encountered problems, including unfulfilled prizes and unused codes, the report added.