Tesla’s New Battery Upgrade Costs How Much!?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in 2014 that there would be “a fairly exciting upgrade” available to the Roadster, his company’s first car. We now know the upgrade is a new higher capacity battery — with a higher capacity price. The battery upgrade for the Roadster will provide around 40-percent more range and bump the energy capacity up to 35-percent; the only downside is, that upgrade will set you back $29,000. The upgrade is not currently available, but you can reserve a spot for a cool $5,000.
Why pay for a battery when you could buy a pretty nice new car instead? The reason behind the high price, according to Tesla, is each battery must be made by hand — with full staff, only two or three are built each week! A fair amount of the overall cost is also attributed to the evidently arduous process taken to swap the batteries out. And get this — Tesla is projecting to not make any profits off the upgrades for the foreseeable future. ?
The price might not seem too high for dedicated Roadster owner though, given the base car comes at a cost of $110,000. With the money, and not the gas, to burn, the thought of extending your driving range from 245 miles up to 400 miles is a decent trade off for the money. Whether you are already on “the list” or looking in to purchasing one, the only real question left is: is the $29,000 worth the extra 150 miles? We will leave that one up to you.
