Oliver Haslam on March 3, 2022, 8:05 pm

Elon Musk Says Tesla Could Have Made A Car With 600 Miles Of Range But Just Doesn’t Want To

Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk says that his company could have made a Model S with more than 600 miles of range a year ago but that doing so would have made the car worse overall.

You can probably take that as an indication that around 400 miles is set to be the upper limit for Tesla cars for the time being.

Tesla had originally said that it would launch a Model S Plaid+, a beats of a car that would be capable of a sub-1.99-second zero to 60mph run while still offering up to 520 miles on a charge. That, ultimately, got canceled and the current Model S Plaid that runs for just shy of 400 miles before it needs a charger.

Now, Musk has responded to a comment on Twitter to say that 400 miles in an EV is enough, at least in his eyes. Musk’s comment was in response to a tweet about the Lucid Air and its 500 miles of range.

We could’ve made a 600 mile Model S 12 months ago, but that would’ve made the product worse in my opinion, as 99.9% of time you’d be carrying unneeded battery mass, which makes acceleration, handling and efficiency worse. Even our 400+ mile range car is more than almost anyone will use.

Whether you agree with Musk here or not, it does seem to be setting the tone for the rest of Tesla’s product portfolio, at least for now. If Tesla does manage to reduce the weight of batteries or make them run longer on a charge however, things could change in the future.