Tesla plans to charge some Model Y owners to unlock more range

Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted connected Friday that nan Standard Range rear-wheel thrust Model Y nan institution has been building and trading “over nan past respective months” really has much scope than nan 260 miles they were sold with. Pending “regulatory approval,” he wrote that nan institution will unlock different 40–60 miles of full range, depending connected which artillery Model Y owners have, “for $1,500 to $2,000.”

This isn’t nan first clip Tesla has software-locked its cars’ range. The institution revealed backmost successful 2016 that nan 70kWh artillery successful nan Model S 70 actually had 75kWh of capacity that customers could salary much than $3,000 to access. It’s imaginable that nan existent Model S and X cars, which measurement nan aforesaid arsenic their longer-range counterparts, have besides been software-limited.

The car industry, successful general, has been trending toward controlling entree to cars’ existing features pinch pay-to-remove package locks. Polestar started selling a $1,200 over-the-air update to boost nan Polestar 2’s capacity successful 2022. Mercedes-Benz charged nan same amount, but annually, to amended nan horsepower and torque of nan EQE and EQS. BMW erstwhile paywalled software-locked CarPlay and, later, heated seats (the institution later dropped that plan). And of course, Tesla has proven itself consenting to remotely disable paid-for features erstwhile 1 of its cars is resold.