Tesla Begins Retrofitting Of Larger, $29,000 Roadster Battery Option

Owners of the Tesla Roadster can now fit their all-electric sports cars with an improved battery pack that provides a 340-mile (547 km) range.

The automaker has started accepting $5,000 deposits for the new battery pack and told Electrek that, for most customers, there will be a wait of a few months as only a handful of battery packs can be retrofitted a week.

While the larger battery pack does add some weight to the car, Tesla claims the Roadster has been drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco on a single charge during development, an appealing prospect to the 2,000-odd Roadster owners. It doesn’t come cheap at all though, but Tesla claims there is a reason for that.

“The price of the Roadster 3.0 battery upgrade is $29,000, including all labor and logistics. This is equal to Tesla’s expected cost. It is not our intention to make a profit on the battery pack. The reason the cost per kWh is higher than a Model S battery is due to the almost entirely hand-built, low-volume (only two or three per week) nature of Roadster battery packs. lt also includes additional work to remove, upgrade, and reinstall the power electronics module (PEM).”

Tesla Roadster’s outfitted with the new battery pack will wear an ‘R80’ badge, reflecting the near 80 kWh capacity.