New battery for Tesla Roadster should significantly increase range

Tesla is going to provide its Roadster sports car with a new battery. This should ensure that the range is considerably larger: from almost 400 km to almost 650 km. Incidentally, this is not only due to a better battery, but also due to reduced air and rolling resistance.

The battery upgrade will be available as part of an upgrade package for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s first electric car, the automaker has announced. About 2500 units of the sports car have been sold. Normally, almost 400km can be driven on a single charge. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the range will be significantly increased by an upcoming battery upgrade. The new battery should ensure that under favorable conditions, approximately 650 km can be driven on a full charge.

Not only a new battery ensures the greater range. There will also be a retrofit aerodynamics package that should reduce air resistance by 15 percent. Rolling resistance should even be reduced by 20 percent with a new set of tires. The full package of updates has been named Roadster 3.0.

With the new battery and lowering of the resistance, the Roadster can last considerably longer on a charge than the popular Model S. According to Musk, the latter will also receive an upgrade in the long term, but it is not known when this will be: the CEO say on Twitter that the upgrade will not be available soon, so Model S owners will have to be patient.

Tesla will demonstrate the upgrade in early 2015 by driving the upgraded Roadster from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a payload. However, it is not yet clear when owners of the sports car can receive the upgrade package. Incidentally, Tesla states that even more upgrades may be released for the Roadster in the coming years.