Range Extender Officially Cancelled!

[mongo]

@mongo if you have to tow like that across IA I feel sorry for you. Like sitting on the side of the road with a propane generator running charging your electric truck. I couldn't help but laugh if I saw such a thing.

For stationary boondocking, solar is the way to go. I brought up the generator for the situation where you're 20 miles short of the destination and want a fast fix.

I expect there is a speed that gets us through that stretch on a full pack. Given the choice of running a generator (already have a gas one anyway) or waiting for a tow truck, I'll go with the generator. (But would rather have had the extender). AWD with free supercharging and core wheels would be the better long range 4WD option over our non-extender cyber wheeled beast, but it's base range difference is less of a factor when towing a big trailer, like 6 miles difference at 1kW/mile.

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[TheLastStarfighter]

Yeah, it's called "Superchargers". Lots of them.

I think this is a reality. When the Cybertruck was announced, there was 1 Supercharger in my province. Now there 5, with a 6th about to be plopped down next to my parents. I used to need at least 400 miles for an EV to be my only vehicle. Soon that will no longer be the case.

 

[scottf200]

GM EV truck (not a very efficient truck relative to CT and Rivian, so the cost of energy would be a lot more per mile. And drives like a big truck!

I thought the GM Silverado RST had four wheel steering would may help it ... but you have to get the RST trim.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2025-chevy-silverado-ev-rst-pros-cons-review

 

[dalton108]

I think this is a reality. When the Cybertruck was announced, there was 1 Supercharger in my province. Now there 5, with a 6th about to be plopped down next to my parents. I used to need at least 400 miles for an EV to be my only vehicle. Soon that will no longer be the case.

Cool. I wish I was in your position. When the CT was announced I could not complete this trip and as you can see, I still can’t.

 

[dalton108]

Cool. I wish I was in your position. When the CT was announced I could not complete this trip and as you can see, I still can’t.

I’m right here in the good old US of A! Ely, Nevada has one of the coolest national parks (Lehman Caves) in any state and all kinds of wonderful things to do, and Golden Eagles flying all over the place just for good measure! If I were going, I would want to bring my TigerMoth, but that’s laughable!

Without towing anything, I cannot get there. [I’ve said this multiple times without literally mapping out for you guys, and some of you undoubtedly assumed I was exaggerating- but here ya go.]

Oh, wait! Nevermind the Tesla app found a way to complete this 490 mile round-trip excursion in … JUST UNDER 14HRS by adding over 300 miles worth of detours!!! ?

*Note: all of this is best case scenario and doesn’t account for the fact that I now have a roof rack and RTT further reducing range by non-trivial amounts.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

Cool. I wish I was in your position. When the CT was announced I could not complete this trip and as you can see, I still can’t.

You wouldn't be able to do that even if CT came with the original quoted 500 miles. No EV can do that at this time.

 

[dalton108]

You wouldn't be able to do that even if CT came with the original quoted 500 miles. No EV can do that at this time.

1. That’s round trip.

2. Even if it wasn’t, one strategically placed supercharger would fix that wouldn’t it? Ergo, “I wish I was in your position.”

3. BTW, we did get a new supercharger ‘along this route’ as someone helpfully pointed out to me earlier this year. In Ely.

The problem is— having a faster charger at the destination that I can’t reach doesn’t actually fix the problem. It means instead of being theoretically able to charge my CT at a destination charger for several hours (9 to 10), now I can theoretically charge it much faster before I get stranded in the middle of nowhere, that is, if I could get there in the first place.

Which, I can’t. ?

 

[GuyV]

How? There's no room as confirmed by Tesla. They need the space for cooling.

I'm not buying that. They do claim it is useful space not wasted, but I'm sure they could squeeze 15mm from it for 4695 cells, adding 18% increased capacity. They've talked about as much as 20% potential improvement from chemistry, so I think +30% is achievable without changing pack size, probably even Tesla "soon".

I think though, that they will be working a lot more in the near term on making it cheaper before they feel the need for a more capital-intensive upgrade. They must have had ideas for longer range back when they were talking 500 miles, and they didn't shrink the original dimensions all that much. Eventually solid state will get us there. Tesla has trialed those, it's just a matter of how long it will be and how much it will cost. It doesn't look like they will have any need or inclination to significantly change the overall design for at least a decade.

 

[mongo]

1. That’s round trip.

2. Even if it wasn’t, one strategically placed supercharger would fix that wouldn’t it? Ergo, “I wish I was in your position.”

3. BTW, we did get a new supercharger ‘along this route’ as someone helpfully pointed out to me earlier this year. In Ely.

The problem is— having a faster charger at the destination that I can’t reach doesn’t actually fix the problem. It means instead of being theoretically able to charge my CT at a destination charger for several hours (9 to 10), now I can theoretically charge it much faster before I get stranded in the middle of nowhere, that is, if I could get there in the first place.

Which, I can’t. ?

Have you tried route planning from the truck? The app has... "issues"...
Las Vegas North to Ely Superchargers is 237 miles.
My beast says it can do it at 65 MPH, but you may need to reduce speed due to roof racks. Have you tried doing a test run since the new Supercharger was installed and seeing if the nav shows if it's still possible at ~60% remaining SOC?

I checked for off brand intermediate stops, but the reviews are not encouraging.

 

[CT_AZ_4x4]

Have you tried route planning from the truck? The app has... "issues"...
Las Vegas North to Ely Superchargers is 237 miles.
My beast says it can do it at 65 MPH, but you may need to reduce speed due to roof racks. Have you tried doing a test run since the new Supercharger was installed and seeing if the nav shows if it's still possible at ~60% remaining SOC?

I checked for off brand intermediate stops, but the reviews are not encouraging.

I’d be super wary trying to do 260+ miles on a so for charge in an AWD with a roof rack let alone a Beast. My AWD with RTT and roof rack drops about 20-60 watts per mile due to wind resistance. The means that driving conservatively I’ve got maybe 275 miles of range. The shelving of the range extender is just garbage.

 

[mongo]

I’d be super wary trying to do 260+ miles on a so for charge in an AWD with a roof rack let alone a Beast. My AWD with RTT and roof rack drops about 20-60 watts per mile due to wind resistance. The means that driving conservatively I’ve got maybe 275 miles of range. The shelving of the range extender is just garbage.

Sure, but this is <240.
We did an impromptu color tour last fall and limped into the charger with single digit energy left, but the nav was accurate the whole way based on driving speed. This Nevada route has less options for going slower though.

 

[dalton108]

Have you tried route planning from the truck? The app has... "issues"...
Las Vegas North to Ely Superchargers is 237 miles.
My beast says it can do it at 65 MPH, but you may need to reduce speed due to roof racks. Have you tried doing a test run since the new Supercharger was installed and seeing if the nav shows if it's still possible at ~60% remaining SOC?

I checked for off brand intermediate stops, but the reviews are not encouraging.

The problem with “destination” and other slow charging options is that there are generally one available. And they are in weird locations. So, these are not reliable charging options which is my concern.

These are harsh climates and I am unwilling to traverse them without the certitude of being able to fuel up and keep on going in minutes (ICE) or knowing for sure that I’m going to be at a reliable Tesla supercharger. no way I would ever do this with my wife and/or daughter (or even just my dogs) which would just complicate matters if I got stuck.

Just to bring this back into focus, the range extender would have alleviated all of these problems.

And, was absolutely an inducement for me to go ahead and complete the purchase because even though we still weren’t going to get 500 miles out of it, 400+ miles would make this trip and others like it viable.

I’m not going to do the speed limit or drive slow through this baron landscape— no one does. I’ve done this drive many times and though any GPS will tell you that it’s a 4+ hour trip the reality is this is 3 hours. if I was out here doing 55 miles an hour just so I could make it I’d be getting flipped off 1000 times more than I already do.

There’s an annual lawyers conference that takes place in Ely and I’ve been to that many times, beyond that I’ve gone for just recreation and previously when I was a inspector with Nevada OSHA, the whole state is subject to inspections and I’ve been up there for that purpose.

So, while it’s remote, it’s not somewhere that people don’t go. It’s just a blind spot for Tesla. Again putting a supercharger in Ely doesn’t help when what I need is one in between Ely and Vegas that doesn’t send me to Utah.

As you and @CT_AZ_4x4 have kind of been discussing, with it being only 250 miles, it sounds like it should be doable. But, unless you’ve done this drive and you’ve got balls bigger than mine that margin for error is just too slim.

I will speed and there are dramatic changes in weather and almost always egregiously high winds on this route. Oh, and did I mention it’s uphill all the way? There’s a 4500 foot elevation gain between Vegas and Ely.

No way I would trust that my truck could make that on one charge.

And, as you say, the only way to really know is to test it which I’ll never do without knowing I’d have a viable backup plan that doesn’t leave me stranded looking for a destination charger in places where people don’t much cotton to “revenuers” let alone random black dudes pulling up in spaceships begging for electrons. ??‍

 

[mongo]

The problem with destination and other slow charging options is that there are generally one available. And they are in weird locations. So these are not reliable charging options which is my concern. These are harsh climates and I am unwilling to reverse them without the certitude of being able to fuel up and keep on going in minutes (ICE) or knowing for sure that I’m going to be at a reliable Tesla supercharger.

Just to bring this back into focus, the range extender would have alleviated all of these problems. And, was absolutely an inducement for me to go ahead and finish the purchase because even though we still weren’t going to get 500 out of it, more than 400 miles would make this a viable option.

I’m not going to do the speed limit or drive slow through this baron landscape no one does. I’ve done this drive many times and though any GPS will tell you that it’s a 4+ hour trip the reality is this is 3 hours.

There’s an annual lawyers conference that takes place in Ely and I’ve been to that many times, beyond that I’ve gone for just recreation and previously when I was a inspector with Nevada OSHA, the whole state is subject to inspections and I’ve been up there for that purpose as well.

So, while it’s remote, it’s not somewhere that people don’t go. It’s just a blind spot for Tesla. Again putting a supercharger in Ely doesn’t help what I need is one in between Ely and Vegas that doesn’t send me to Utah.

I know that with it being 250 miles it should be doable. But unless you’ve done this drive and you’ve got balls bigger than mine that margin of error is too tight. I will speed and there are dramatic changes in weather and almost always high winds on this route. No way I would trust that my car would actually make it on one charge. And as you say the only way to really know is to test it which I’ll never do without knowing I’d have a viable backup plan that doesn’t leave me stranded looking for a destination charger in places where people don’t much cotton to “revenuers” let alone black dudes pulling up in spaceships begging for electrons. ??‍

Yah, my though with the test run was getting a good energy usage number with your setup while never being too far from your original charger. Of course in retrospect, you already have that number from driving other trips... (and a tailwind could really mess you up)

We need Tesla to drop a mobile Supercharger for the Silver State Classic Challenge and leave it a couple weeks so you can visit the park.

 

[dalton108]

Yah, my though with the test run was getting a good energy usage number with your setup while never being too far from your original charger. Of course in retrospect, you already have that number from driving other trips... (and a tailwind could really mess you up)

We need Tesla to drop a mobile Supercharger for the Silver State Classic Challenge and leave it a couple weeks so you can visit the park.

Or, you know, just give us the range or the range extender that we need. This is why I get so infuriated when regular people parrot back the bullshit from Elon and RJ that, “nobody needs more than 300 miles.”

Fuck you! Yes we do! Some of us just don’t know it, because they never go anywhere or do anything outside of city centers or, apparently, effortlessly towing their 50,000,000 ton yacht the lake that’s conveniently within 50 miles of their home where they do all of their charging. ?

For those of us who like to be off the beaten path, 300 miles is insufficient. And unlike far too many know-it-alls have tried to assert on this forum— this is not an “edge case” it’s just what living an active outdoors lifestyle looks like out here.

Worse, both RJ and Elon knew that we needed more than 300 miles right up until the point that they realized how hard it was to deliver. That’s why RJ went to great lengths to deliver a 400+ mile option and Elon tried and then when he couldn’t do it, promised the range extender. Now … yoink!

For some consumers (as we’ve seen here many times) to eat up this gas-lighting and parrot it back to others in this weird self-thought-policing way is crazy as shit to me!

What great pets!

 

[AussieAl]

IMO someone oughta design a Range Extender to drop into the “Smugglers Bay” , that way we retain the full length of the bed and keep the CG low.

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