Tesla Scraps Cybertruck Range Extender

Tesla has reportedly scrapped plans for a bed-mounted battery pack designed to boost the Cybertruck’s range to nearly 500 miles—up from its current 350 miles, depending on the model.

Customers who paid a $2,000 reservation fee for the range extender shared emails from Tesla on X last week, stating:

Update to Your Cybertruck Range Extender Order

Thank you for being a Cybertruck owner.

We are no longer planning to sell the Range Extender for Cybertruck. As a result, we will be refunding your deposit in full. The amount will be returned to the original payment method used for the transaction.

Thank you for your understanding. The Tesla Team

In April, EV blog Electrek was the first to report that Tesla removed the range extender from the Cybertruck online configurator on its website, where buyers could reserve it with a “$2,000 non-refundable deposit.”

Here is Electrek’s first take on Tesla quietly pulling the Cybertruck’s extender:

It does seem to be a more negative set of announcements recently from Tesla, or a failure to deliver. Maybe that’s me looking for the -ne and not giving the other announcements more credence, due to a more -ne view of Tesla at the moment. It can be a challenge to come into this with a biased viewpoint.

I am going to be generous, and say Tesla in certain markets is having a challenging time.

They have some very big bets on the table, with robotaxi, and I struggle with that one as a concept in the short to medium term. Maybe in 10 years time, in London I will laugh at my lack of vision. However, that robotaxi is going to need to be one smart cookie to manage the streets of a lot European capitals.

In our view, stuffing a bulky range extender battery into the bed of the Cybertruck was always a poor idea.

A far more efficient solution comes from Archimedes Defense and Unplugged Performance’s UP.FIT division: a frunk-mounted, jet-powered generator that offers on-demand range extension without sacrificing rear cargo space. This combination of diesel-electric hybrid systems isn’t just for the Cybertruck—it has game-changing potential for all EVs. Not to forget, diesel-electric hybrid systems have powered trains for nearly a century.