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

  • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      19 hours ago

      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.