After news that Lucid Motors had delivered its first electric vehicle (EV) with 500 miles of range, @WholeMarsBlog noted that “Tesla will be the first to mass produce one.”
In response, Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained why the company hasn’t yet made a 600-mile range vehicle, saying that the range would detract from the vehicle’s overall quality.
@ElonMusk said that Tesla “could’ve made a 600 mile Model S 12 months ago, but that would’ve made the product worse [in my opinion],” adding that the move would have made handling, acceleration and efficiency worse.
The CEO also added that the 400+ mile range vehicle is “more than almost anyone will use.”
We could’ve made a 600 mile Model S 12 months ago, but that would’ve made the product worse imo, as 99.9% of time you’d be carrying unneeded battery mass, which makes acceleration, handling & efficiency worse. Even our 400+ mile range car is more than almost anyone will use.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2022
Still, many consumers struggle to move from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to EVs due to concerns about range, with one user in the thread even saying “I don’t care about acceleration. I want more range.”
In January, an ex-Apple executive’s energy startup created a battery for the Tesla Model S with 752 miles of range.
The automaker also implemented the AMD Ryzen chip in January, which uses up more power and caused a slight drop in range.
In Europe, the Tesla Model Y actually gained an increased range, with the Performance variant of the EV set to begin deliveries in March.
