1d ago

Tesla confirms it has given up on its Cybertruck range extender to achieve promised range

Tesla has confirmed it has given up on plans to make a Cybertruck range extender to achieve the range it originally promised on the electric pickup truck.

It started refunding deposits for the $16,000 extra battery pack.

When Tesla unveiled the production version of the Cybertruck in late 2023, two main disappointments were the price and the range.

The tri-motor version, the most popular in reservation tallies before production, was supposed to have over 500 miles of range and start at $70,000.

Tesla now sells the tri-motor Cybertruck for $100,000 and only has a range of 320 miles.

The dual-motor Cybertruck was supposed to cost $50,000 and have over 300 miles of range. In reality, it starts at $80,000 and has 325 miles of range.

Archive link: https://archive.is/CGbaE

106 comments

It could be $15 and have the range of an ICBM, it can still sit on the lot and scare the kids walking by.

Is it just me, or is musk profiting off of selling people tech before it's actually ready?
Like, we don't have the means right now to achieve what he advertises, so he lies about it and then 'alters the deal' after taking people's money.
- Oh he’s been called out for that for over a decade now, it just got buried under the mass of starry eyed reporting.
- selling half-assed tech, basically A scam, which is whole business model.
- Only a fool buys something on the promise of future upgrades and potential. Buy stuff on what it is now.
  This is a bad look for Tesla for sure, but no one should be going “I wouldn’t have bought it if I knew this would get cancelled”.
- So he learned from the video gaming industry?
  
  Yep.
  "Games as a service" are released as a "minimum viable product" to see if it can hook enough suckers to make it profitable enough for the company to finish making.
  If there aren't enough saps that take the bait, development ceases and whoever put their faith in the product look like tools.
- that's been tech as an industry for the last decade. product releases, then all promised features come as a half baked update a year later... if at all. phones, games, cars, etc all use this strategy now unfortunately.
- Pray I don't alter it further.
- Is it just me, or is musk profiting off of selling people tech before it's actually ready?
  Today's vocab word is Vaporware
- That's exactly what he's been doing with all his businesses. And it works. Tesla is still hugely overvalued as a company.

How about giving up on the Cybertruck
- How about giving up

Why implement a new feature for a product nobody is buying?

How hard can it be to produce a simple battery pack, for a company that is in the business of designing and producing battery packs no less...
- Preorder interest probably made it not worth it financially.
- Think the end of the article pretty much nails it.
  Tesla needed to install and remove it at a service center. Owners couldn’t remove them themselves. I think it was pretty much dead on arrival at $16,000.
  But I think it could also be as simple as it’s not worth producing due to demand – both due to insufficient people reserving it and not enough Cybertruck buyers to create a market for the range extender.
  Therefore, the range extender is dead for the same reason that the Cybertruck RWD now has the same battery pack as the AWD instead of a smaller pack for less money: the Cybertruck is a commercial flop, and it’s not a high-volume program enough to justify making several battery pack sizes, including a removable one.
  
  I see he took the "Game as a Service" approach but with electric trucks.
  Nice.

Ima be honest, I like the design of this thing. I’m big into brutalism and the Delorean is one of my favorite car designs of all time. I was really hoping this would be good, but it has turned out to be one of the worst products in recent history in any category. It’s up there with the humane pin.
It makes me a little bit sad because I will never be able to live out my cyberpunk fantasy of driving an electric truck made out of bare metal manufactured by a technofascist corporation.
- I don't know man, the hyundai ioniq 5 has way more delorean vibes than the cyber truck. The cyber truck just actually looks like how i was drawing cars as a child.
- What are you basing that extreme statement on? It seems to far from a bad product, let alone “one of the worst products in recent history”.
  
  A 100k "rugged offroad" vehicle where the bumper falls off when you tow something, that isn't waterproof, sometimes the rims just break, it can slice you apart and the car is held together by elmers glue and hopes and dreams. What other product in that price range is that shit?
- I absolutely hated the design and feel bad for anyone who gets into an accident with this monstrosity.
- up there with the humane pin.
  Funny, or sad, how quickly we collective manage to forget bad grifts.
- I hope the N Vision 74 will one day make it onto the streets
  https://youtu.be/pu1yzLEsc1Q
  
  hydrogen-powered high performance.
  It will literally never make it onto the streets in the US.
- I’ve got an aluminum foil wrapped turd that I know you’re interested in buying. Ready to ship!

"Thanks for all the $16k loans at 0% shmucks. We've kept the interest we made while rates have been up and now you can have it back while they're dropping. Of course, your money is now worth less than it was when you gave it to us during high inflation. Suck it losers. Love, T E S L A"
EDIT: deposit was $150. Still shitty but not the same impact
EDIT 2: Or $2000? ... tl;dr: shitty
- The deposit for a cyberstuck was $150. The package was valued at $16k.
  Being happy about lies being exposed is good, but spreading a false narrative about it is bad.
  
  From the article in this post…
  Last month, Electrek reported that Tesla has quietly removed the range extender from the Cybertruck online configurator, where buyers could reserve it with a “$2,000 non-refundable deposit.”
  
  Ah I misread this
  It started refunding deposits for the $16,000 extra battery pack.
  You are correct. People make mistakes, not everything is "a narrative".
- Enjoy your overpriced truck that under delivers. At least you look COOL™.
- I doubt the deposits were for the full cost, right?
  
  If they were for any price, this is still true.
  
  $150.

The dual motor was originally announced to be US$39,900, not 50,000. It is lies all the way down at Tesla.
- I was seriously considering it back then. My wife hated the look and wouldn't let me even consider it, but as someone who likes Back to the Future and Tron, I didn't hate the aesthetic, though it took some getting used to. And I want a comfortably large EV (my compact is too small for my old bones) with 500 miles to avoid range anxiety. A 100 mile distance in the middle of a midwestern winter without a charger at the other end is going to require 500 miles of range to get back home due to heating the battery and cabin, and driving at 80mph. And my longest daily commute was 212 miles round trip before someone asks how often I need to drive 100 miles away in the middle of winter.
  I wouldn't say bullet dodged because I was never really close to getting one, but charging three times the price for only 60% range compared to that announcement is fucking insane.
  
  How good was that job for you to be commuting for 2+ hours a day?
- The dual motor was originally announced at 50k
  
  Single motor rear-wheel drive with 250 miles of range, 7,500-pound towing capacity, and 0–60 mph capabilities in under 6.5 seconds, for $39,900 Dual motor all-wheel drive with 300 miles of range, 10,000-pound towing capacity, and 0–60 mph in under 4.5 seconds for $49,900
- $39,900? Not $40,000? Does Elon still think that old "99" trick still works?

Why the third motor? One for each of the front wheels and one for the rear?
- the 3rd one is a reality disortion field motor for MUSKRATS musk supporters.
- One runs front wheels, one runs rear wheels and third one powers the mental gymnastics it takes to be a tesla owner in 2025.
  
  LOL
- Two in the back, one in the front. There's also a two and four motor version.
  
  Two in the back, one in the front.
  The Shocker
  
  That makes even less sense. Distributing mechanical power on non steering wheels is easy, but for steering wheels requires a more complex and expensive coupling, as well as power losses. Just... why?

Grifters grifting

However, Tesla had devised a solution to bring the range closer to what it originally announced: a separate battery pack that sits in the truck’s bed. Tesla called it a “range extender.” It costs $16,000 and takes up a third of the Cybertruck’s bed.
You cannot make this shit up 😂
- Imagine how easy it would be to be if elongated muskrat kept his mouth shut.
  
  Is St Elmo's Fire made of Li-Ion or Life-Po?

Tesla and unfulfilled promises.... Only slightly less an iconic duo than Tesla bad news and stock price going up.

"Tesla confirms it has given up" is the headline I want
- The only true PR statement they could release.

$16.000 just to get what you paid for?
Some people sure have a lot of money to spend.
- Some people sure have a lot of money to spend.
  It's why everything is so expensive. So these fucks can give musk money.
- Not quite.
  $16k to get closer to what they promised lol Probably won’t do that much considering the added weight

Surprised they haven’t given up on Musk

Tesla now sells the tri-motor Cybertruck for $100,000 and only has a range of 320 miles.
The dual-motor Cybertruck was supposed to cost $50,000 and have over 300 miles of range. In reality, it starts at $80,000 and has 325 miles of range.
So, the cheaper model with two motors (why even) has a larger range than the full price model with three motors™®?
LMAO.
- 3 motors use more power than 2, so less range is expected. A car with 2 engines would use more petrol than a car with only 1.
- two motors (why even)
  To have mechanically independent FWD and RWD, this is actually pretty standard for all AWD BEVs and not just Tesla.
  
  That's how the Mach E GT does it. Same motor, Ford just puts an extra one at the front.
  
  I have 0 knowledge about those things but now I want to know if you can forward and backward at the same time?
- Makes sense to me. The cheaper Camry with a 4 cylinder gets better mileage than the more expensive 6 cylinder.
- It's probably more about faster acceleration. With all that battery weight, the dual motor model has to be sluggish.

Is anybody still holding Tesla shares?
- Shares somehow up today
  
  I have an older comment that goes through Tesla's litany of woes and the stock goes up with every piece of bad news. It is being supported by something other than reality.

So, anyway, anyone seen any good movies or anything?

It definitely seems an equivalent of putting fingers into your ears and ignoring the issue.
Vaporware and Tesla - name a more iconic duo.
It's kinda troubling that we're returning to reality where vaporware is such a legitimate strategy with no down sides.

106 comments