AN EV driver claims that Tesla is trying to charge him £3,500 to unlock extra range in his car’s battery.
The man bought a second-hand Tesla Model S 60 and then discovered that he had additional battery capacity that he was locked out of using.
Reddit user @u/1FrostySlime was fuming after realising that his car has a 90kWh battery pack, but is actually limited to just 60kWh -unless he’s willing to fork out thousands of pounds.
The man explained: “I paid for 60kwh, so I want a 60kwh battery, so I don’t waste energy carrying the extra weight a bigger battery brings… If I’m carrying around a battery that weighs more, I want to get something out of that extra weight.”
“Since I have free supercharging, Tesla’s essentially the one paying for me to haul around the extra weight anyway. The point of the post wasn’t to complain about this. It was to point out the sheer stupidity of software locking a battery, to begin with.”
The post has had more than 1,600 visits on Reddit – and people were quick to comment below.
One said: “There are people that do this for much, much less money. Tesla hackers are the best.”
Another said: “I’m actually really surprised there hasn’t been a movement to ‘jail break’ Teslas yet. Maybe when more start ageing out of warranty.”
A third pointed out: “I bought one of these software-locked 60kwh cars. It’s great!
Your car comes with some extra features. You can charge 100% every day without consequences.
“You get the charge rate and discharge rate (acceleration) of the larger battery. You also have a cheap upgrade capacity. It’s really a win-win!”
This comes after a driver who bought a £100k Tesla Model S claimed that it looks like it was built by a group of toddlers.
Plus, a Tesla owner has shockingly revealed five reasons why you shouldn’t buy one of the US electric cars.