What just happened? Bad news for any Cybertruck owners who hoped to purchase a range extender for the EV: Tesla has abandoned its plans to sell the $16,000 add-on battery pack, and is refunding customers who have paid the $2,000 reservation fee.
Tesla and Elon Musk faced plenty of criticism when the Cybertruck officially went on sale in 2023, mostly due to it having a higher price and lower range than what Musk promised in 2019.
Tesla had previously said that its tri-motor Cybertruck would have a 500-mile range and start at $70,000. Today, the highest-range Cybertruck is the $79,990 dual-motor AWD model that can reach 325 miles. There's also the $99,990 tri-motor "Cyberbeast" that can reach 301 miles.
However, Tesla also offered an optional range extender battery pack for the Cybertruck that increases the distance it can travel on a single charge. It cost $16,000 and takes up about a third of the truck bed.
Tesla initially said the range extender would increase the dual-motor Cybertruck's range to over 470 miles, but this estimate was reduced to 445+ miles in 2024. The company also delayed the battery pack's release date from early 2025 to mid-2025 last year.
The writing was on the wall in April when the range extender was quietly removed from the Cybertruck's online configurator. It had been available to reserve for a non-refundable $2,000 deposit. The move led many to believe Tesla was giving up on the product before it reached the market.
BREAKING: Tesla has cancelled the Cybertruck Range Extender.
– Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 7, 2025
"We are no longer planning to sell the Range Extender for Cybertruck. As a result, we will be refunding your deposit in full" pic.twitter.com/yb1xOqecX2
Surely enough, the company has now confirmed it will no longer sell the range extender for the Cybertruck. Tesla has been emailing those who reserved the battery pack to inform them they will receive a full refund on their deposit.
Something that the email doesn't reveal is why Tesla has taken this decision.
As of the latest recall announced in March 2025, the Tesla Cybertruck has been recalled eight times since deliveries began in late 2023. It's one of the reasons why fewer than 50,000 Cybertrucks were sold over a 15-month period, which is a fraction of the 250,000 to 500,000 units Musk once said he expected to sell.
It could simply be that Tesla didn't believe it would sell enough range extenders – based on reservations and Cybertruck sales – to make manufacturing worthwhile. Taking up 30% of the truck bed and requiring installation and removal at a service center also made it a hard sell, especially at $16,000.
