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
Longer range so it can get stuck further from home? 🤭😀👍
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.
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.
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.
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 the switch to a black hat? Was it to easy for people to see?
“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.
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”.
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.”
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?
I was transitioning from being a lotus notes developer to a java developer and I was moving back home to the Midwest from DC. As that job took a chance on me and allowed both, it was a really good fucking job for the moment. It eventually transitioned to hybrid.
We had planned to move to the area but couldn’t find a place we liked and kept living with my folks until I just said fuck it and we bought a house near them instead and I dealt with the commute. Then Covid hit and I got laid off on my two year anniversary.
Now, my commute is about 70 miles one way 1-2 times per week (and that’s still 3 hours total drive time). That’s a pretty typical drive for me. My kids also live kinda near where I work so even if it weren’t for commuting, I’d still make that drive quite often. As it is, I drive down the night before an office day, spend time with them and stay over night, and then drive back home about 2pm the next day (fucking hate rush hour in Detroit). But I can’t charge at their houses anyway so that doesn’t help.
I drive a PHEV because there isn’t an EV out yet that can get me there and back. Though I finally have a plug at work if I get in early enough.
Now that’s dedication. I’d probably have driven myself into a ditch by the 3rd month of that (but I haaaate driving)
I don’t mind driving as long as I’m not sitting in traffic. Which is why I’m in the Midwest making far less money than I could on either coast. My commute times were just as long near DC with a third of the miles traveled. There was the commuter train but that was just a different kind of stress.
I’m with you, I’ll spend a lot more on a house or accept a lower paying job to avoid commuting.
Where I live is not super uncommon for people to drive an hour into the nearest city. I don’t recommend it, though!
It really makes me envious when I see how much Europeans work: my partner already works more hours on average than the average European, and then his commute is on top of that. Why are we here? Give me mandatory vacation and a job I can bike to ANY DAY.
I hate driving so much, I moved somewhere 15 minutes from work even though I only go in like 3 times a month
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?
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.
I absolutely hated the design and feel bad for anyone who gets into an accident with this monstrosity.
What are you basing that extreme statement on? It seems to be far from a bad product, let alone “one of the worst products in recent history”.
Basing it on the huge amount of recalls it has had? The fact that it is more dangerous than the Ford Pinto by a wide margin? The fact that the panels are glued on? That if you try to haul something with it you risk tearing it apart? Maybe the fact that it is more expensive than all its competitors while also having worse performance even though it was announced years before any of them?
The bar for cars is so high right now too, like you sit down in a 25k Kia and you’ll hardly miss anything coming from a luxury brand other than the badge and maybe a little bit of engine power.
The “recalls” have all apart from 1, iirc (the accelerator pedal cover), been delivered via OTA software updates. Calling them “recalls” in the first place is a bit silly since they’re not actually recalled.
Many panels in many cars are “glued” on btw. Calling it “glue” is disingenuous too, attempting to make out like it’s not a specific panel bonding adhesive that is used all over the car industry.
I’m assuming you’re talking about the JerryRigEverything video with your “risk testing it apart” comment, right? That was, for lack of a more correct term, complete horseshit. The “test” was “rigged” in a way that it made it seem like it failed when in fact it passed with flying colours, lasting like 10x the quoted force. There’s no real world situation where that failure would happen, because the test exerts pressure in a way that can’t happen in any regular situation a truck can be in.
One thing I don’t think anyone can claim is that the cyber truck has worse performance than its competitors. It’s basically a supercar in terms of performance lol.
I agree the car market is in a great place in terms of build quality and features even on low spec cars, but the Cybertruck still isn’t “one of the worst products in recent memory”, not even close.
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?
Ah the BS JerryRigEverything “towing” test. Of course people on here believe that was a problem for the cybertruck.
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
hydrogen-powered high performance.
It will literally never make it onto the streets in the US.
Hey now, the US has multiple hydrogen stations, assuming you live in a certain area of California.
Well, they can ditch the Hydrogen part, that technology is done
I’m not a car guy so I don’t understand why your view seems to be so popular on the Internet (at least in the Anglosphere).
Is Toyota doing the Sony thing where they double down on a certain — perhaps less practical — format in hopes that it will make them money if/when it gets adopted as an industry standard?
It’s the nature of hydrogen as a fuel. It’s a gas, and has a very low power density. You can either compress it, but that requires the car carry a robust (and heavy) pressure vessel around. Plus, all the delivery infrastructure has to handle hydrogen at those crazy pressures, or you need to carry the compressor in the vehicle, which again is heavy, and slow. The other possiblity is to condense the hydrogen by cooling it. But now you need bulky insulation for the tank, plus, it will either need active cooling from the car, or your have to accept that the hydrogen will eventually get too warm and blow the tank, and then you have to vent it.
Hydrogen doesn’t make sense at car scale.
Its not that I don’t agree with you but I figure there has to be a business case for it if Toyota is willing to keep investing in it for 25 years. Surely, at this point, they would have thrown in the towel but they keep at it. And to make maters more interesting, they don’t seem to give a shit about full electric either. It feels like they know something we don’t.
They bet on the wrong horse, they are reluctantly making the switch in BEV.
And the previous commenter didn’t even give the full picture, it’s that even making hydrogen is just wholly uneconomical any way you look at it, you can look up grey, green hydrogen.
The use case for hydrogen would be if someone drives like a shittton a day, so maybe semis, and like the less than 1% of drivers who need to dive that much.
Thank you kindly! It just seems so weird that Toyota and even Japan seems so gung-ho about it. I guess it’s a case of sunk cost fallacy?
Not sure. Toyota is a very conservative and risk-adverse automaker. My guess is that they thought it could work better in Japan, as they have less land area and more miles traveled by train. Hydrogen can kinda make sense for a service/fleet vehicle that works in a limited area and always returns to the same location at the end of the day. Hydrogen can be run through an ICE engine, or it can be used in a fuel cell to produce electricity. Plus, everyone else was doing R&D into BEVs, so doing a little into hydrogen makes sense. If you fall too far behind on BEV tech, you can just buy a competitor’s vehicle and reverse engineer it to catch up.
I’m not a business person. Take that all with a grain of salt.
Toyota obviously hasn’t heard about this little thing called a Prius
I’ve got an aluminum foil wrapped turd that I know you’re interested in buying. Ready to ship!
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.
Why implement a new feature for a product nobody is buying?
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’s the other way around.
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?
Why? More power……
I believe the three motor versions is to add extra power under load to the rear wheels. (A weight/power/range compromise between the 4 and 2 motor versions).
The motors are essentially in line with the wheels (they have gearing but it’s minimal and internal to the motor housing, not attached like an automatic transmission would be, if that makes sense.)
The “three motor” design is just the single motor design up front and the dual motor design in the back.
I’m not sure if they ever actually released the single motor version though.
extra power under load to the rear wheels
Lol like there’s enough room back there to add a load.
The load of getting this brick up to speed quickly so the driver can show off
It’s supposed to tow. In theory.
I’ve seen arcade games built tougher than the interior of that POS lol
Basically they use the same size motor everywhere, and your total torque and power is dependent on how many you’ve got?
pretty much. I believe all the cars use the same motor except for the plaid versions (or maybe just the S plaid?) that has a different motor that’s designed to hit higher rpm’s
More power to the rear makes sense because you get more traction at the rear under normal acceleration, not just when carrying a load. It’s pretty typical of electric cars to do this, just like it’s typical to have bigger brakes on the front of all cars, because there’s more traction at the front under braking.
There’s also the issue of torque vectoring. Without a differential, torque vectoring is essential, but under acceleration torque vectoring to the rear wheels is much more effective than to the front wheels, so that’s another reason to split the rear power but not the front.
How do you figure dual front motors would alleviate any of what you said a front diff would need? Dual front motors will still be rigidly mounted to the chassis, requiring flexible couplings. The rear is also independent, requiring the same flexible couplings whether it’s a diff or motors. CV axles all around. Non-steer wheels still have vertical travel from the suspension.
You wouldn’t need a front differential, for one. But you’re right, unless they somehow made a directly wheel coupled motor that turned with the wheel, it l still needs CV couplings.
As for rear, they don’t need CV axles. Two simple cross couplings are enough. The speed variability happens significantly when the wheels turn, going up and down is a negligible issue. Cars have been using the much chapter and simple cross couplings in the rear for decades.
The CT has four-wheel steering, so yeah, it’s actually more complicated than a regular truck in that regard. I remember reading something about the mechanisms to make that possible taking up a shitload of room.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. They had to bolt that on to have any chance of having a reasonable turn radius.
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?
Only the standard range Model Y uses LFP batteries.
Important thing is Musk can’t sing Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’
Tesla and unfulfilled promises… Only slightly less an iconic duo than Tesla bad news and stock price going up.
Grifters grifting
“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
