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.

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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.

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.

Even though the Cybertruck has been in production for a year and a half, the range extender has yet to launch.

Initially, Tesla said that it would come “early 2025”, but we reported in October 2024 that it was pushed to “mid-2025” late last year.

At the time, Tesla also reduced the range that the removable battery pack adds to the Cybertruck to “445+ miles” rather than “470+ miles” for the dual motor – a ~25-mile reduction in range.

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.”

At the time, we speculated that Tesla was most likely giving up on the product.

Sure enough, the automaker has now confirmed that it doesn’t plan to produce the range extender.

A Tesla Cybertruck owner contacted Electrek to share communication that Tesla started sending to Cybertruck owners who reserved the range extender, letting them know that the product is dead.

Tesla wrote in the email:

“We are no longer planning to sell the Range Extender for Cybertruck.”

The automaker says that it will start processing refunds for the deposits.

Here’s Tesla’s communication about the Cybertruck range extender in full:

Update to Your Cybertruck Range Extender Order

Hi [redacted],

Thank you for being a Cybertruck owner.

We are no longer planning to sell the Range Extender for Cybertruck. As a result, we will be refunding your deposit in full. The amount will be returned to the original payment method used for the transaction.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Tesla Team

Electrek’s Take

There could be many reasons why Tesla has given up on the product.

The range extender was confirmed to take 30% of the Cybertruck’s bed, and 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.