Tesla Cybertruck Falls Short of Promises but the Range Extender Is the Father of All Fails

Tesla waited until the Delivery Day to announce Cybertruck specifications, and now we know why. The presentation was light in detail, with Elon Musk omitting everything inconvenient. And that was a lot, considering that the Cybertruck fell short of expectations in many areas. These include pricing, payload, towing capacity, range, and, most notably, features.

Musk said nothing about Cybertruck pricing and only highlighted select specifications. For instance, Musk emphasized Cybertruck's pulling capacity, comparing it with a Ford F-350 truck. Nevertheless, with an 11,000-lb towing capacity, the Cybertruck fell short of the 14,000-lb advertised ability when the Cybertruck launched in 2019. The 2,500-lb payload is also lower than the 3,500-lb announced in 2019. Finally, prices are between 43% and 60% higher than those announced at launch.

Still, the most disappointing and, at the same time, intriguing detail was the Cybertruck's range. Tesla promised 250 miles, 300 miles, and 500 miles for the RWD, Dual-Motor, and Three-Motor variants, respectively, when it announced the Cybertruck in 2019. Many reservation holders reportedly canceled their reservations after Tesla announced the final specifications.

While the dual-motor Cybertruck is still listed with a tentative 250-mile range, and the dual motor exceeds expectations with 340 miles, the three-motor variant falls short of the 500-mile range. Dubbed Cyberbeast, the most powerful Cybertruck only goes 320 miles on a charge, meaning Tesla hasn't found a way to install a bigger (or denser) battery pack to achieve the promised range.

To (partly) make up for it, Tesla mentions a Range Extender without offering any details on its website or during the presentation. Before jumping to conclusions, this is a battery range extender, not a combustion engine like those used by other range-extender hybrids, including the Ram 1500 Ramcharger. Using this additional battery, the Cybertruck AWD can reach 470 miles of range (+130 miles), while the Cyberbeast can go 440 miles (+120 miles).

This is an intriguing approach, although it's still unclear how the battery range extender might work. The scarce information we have indicates that it will be installed in the bed, taking about 45% of its capacity (based on people's perception or one-third, according to Elon Musk). If you also want a spare tire, there's no room left in the vault for anything else, considering that the Cybertruck doesn't come with a spare tire compartment.

Considering the added range, we can assume the range extender is also one-third of Cybertruck's battery pack, which means between 40 and 50 kWh, depending on the actual battery pack capacity. This explains why the piggyback battery costs a whopping $16,000, according to rumors based on the Tesla webpage's source code. It would be interesting to see who will pay this money for 130 miles of supplemental range.

Beyond these inconveniences, the battery range extender reveals what can be Tesla's biggest failure, affecting not only the Cybertruck but also the company's future plans. Tesla only needs this contraption to make up for the disappointing performance of the 4680 battery cells in the Cybertruck. Despite announcing the second generation of the cells, with 10% performance improvements, Tesla still can't make 4680 to match the best 2170 cells in energy density and charging performance.

It's obvious that the Cybertruck's battery pack is full of cells, with no room for adding capacity unless the energy density of the cells improves. When it announced the Cybertruck's specifications in 2019, Tesla was a lot more bullish on the 4680 cell performance. We saw this in 2020 during Battery Day when it promised 16% more range when using the 4680 cells instead of the 2170 parts. Three years later, the cells are still inferior, and they probably deliver 10% less range instead of 16% more.