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Tesla Cybertruck Range Accidentally Leaked: Tesla Isn't Happy

The range of the Tesla Cybertruck has been inadvertently leaked with the screen and its new UI, and Tesla isn't happy.
Tesla Cybertruck Range Accidentally Leaked: Tesla Isn't Happy

Tesla Cybertruck Range Accidentally Leaked

Was the Tesla Cybertruck range leaked accidentally via the new screen UI that has been circulating around the Internet?

It seems that this may be the case. I compiled a few snippets of the UI that was recently leaked while it was charging, that gives us some very useful and important information.

The first piece of information that is useful is what percent of charge the Cybertruck is at, which is 71%.

The second piece of information that is useful is the time remaining, which is 55 minutes.

The third piece of information that is useful is the charge limit, which is 100%.

The fourth piece of information that is useful is the trip information, which shows 26 minutes, using 16 miles, and arriving at 65% state of charge (about 6% usage for 16 miles, which gives you 266.6 miles).

Note, that Tesla includes climate controls and many other things when calculating range. This gives you real world range, which is different from EPA range.

This means that 6% is not the true EPA range. It's more like 4% to 4.5%. I don't know if the current 71% charge is 70.5% or 71.4%.

In my Model 3 RWD, when it says I have 10% usage, say from 70% down to 60% for a somewhat long trip, I can get it to as low as 6% or 7% used and not 10% and not use the climate controls and not floor it to waste energy, and I get the stated EPA range of around 267 to 272 miles.

It's going to be the same here with the Cybertruck. The range - true EPA range is not 6% to 16 miles, it's closer to 4% or 4.5% to 16 miles, which gives you around 350 to 400 miles of EPA range - and that's an estimate. I don't know if that 6% is 5.5% or 6.4%. I wish Tesla used decimal places in their calculations.

The fifth and final piece of information that is useful is how much charge is being put through the Cybertruck. This is 77 kW at 75 mi/hr with +50 kW.

Let's see if we can take this information and calculate the range.

You May Also Be Interested In: Cybertruck will succeed where DeLorean did not.

How the Range Can Be Calculated

I first looked at how people were trying to calculate the range from this.

The first person who attempted to calculate the range said that if the Cybertruck has a 71% charge and driving 16 miles would reduce it to 65%. This person said this implies a full range of about 266.6 miles (16 miles per 6% of battery). But that isn't EPA range, as I mentioned above. It's worse case scenario range using climate controls and other energy sinks.

That didn't seem quite right to me, so then I thought about it a bit more:

With the battery at 71% state of charge and 55 minutes to achieve a full charge at a rate of 77 kWh (which is in the leaked image), the battery is an approximate (77*(100-71)) which equals an about 220 kWh battery pack. I'd say a pack size anywhere from 200 to 220 kWh makes sense.

You must also consider the charge curve. It won't get this speed all the way to 100% state of charge. The battery could indeed be less than what I stated here, but it's VERY difficult to know how much the charge rate will taper off without knowing anything about the battery or charger being used.

Now, consider that this vehicle will get about 2 miles or more on average per kWh using the EPA range of 4% for 16 miles and a 200 kWh battery. This is because I get 4 to 5 miles on average per kWh in my Model 3 RWD, but the Cybertruck is MUCH bigger and less aerodynamic - so I reduce its miles per kW to about half or more.

This is also depending on driving with climate controls or not and with towing or not - I'm saying no climate controls and having the Cybertruck do no towing.

I extrapolate that the EPA range is going to be anywhere between 400 and 440 miles (220 kWh * 2 miles per kWh). And this is, again, an estimate. It could, of course, be lower and in the 300's.

I also don't know if this is a dual-motor or tri-motor Cybertruck. I think the tri-motor version will be closer to 500 miles of range and the dual-motor will be closer to 400 miles of range or so. We'll see what happens when Tesla has their delivery event and the Cybertruck goes live.

It was said that Tesla isn't happy about this and has banned people attending who leaked this information, according to Jeremy Judkins - who also says he shouldn't be quoted by journalists :). It turns out, he made that up and Tesla isn't banning people.

I'll be sure to update this more as I get new information!

In Other Tesla News: Multiple Cybertrucks seen cutting corners at Giga Texas.

What do you think about the range calculated here - would you calculate it differently? Is the range lower or higher than what I deduced here?

Share this article with friends and family and on social media! Thank you so much for your support!

Hi! My name is Jeremy Johnson, and I am a Tesla investor and supporter. I first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, I've become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla I can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies like Aptera. I cover Tesla and EV developments at Torque News. You can follow me on X.COM or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow my Tesla news coverage. Image Credit, Tesla, Screenshot

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Comments

David Bard (not verified)    November 16, 2023 - 12:22AM

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I would feel more comfortable with your estimate if the charge limit were set to 80% rather than 100%. The 77 kWh rate is obviously on a DC fast charge, which means it will slow considerably as it approaches 100 (even on a supercharger, and even if the cybertruck has pre-conditioning enabled, which we do not know on the prototype software).

So the math may be far from accurate given that the numbers are pulled from the upper third (slowest) of the charge. The actual range is likely somewhere between the two numbers discussed.

Jeff (not verified)    November 16, 2023 - 8:06AM

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It doesn't charge at that rate up to 100%. It slows wayyyy down as it gets closer to 100. So using the miles per % method will be much more accurate, so range somewhere in the upper 200s likely....especially since we know that 4680 cells have not been performing well enough scale up as they hoped by now, hence many cybertruck delays.

John (not verified)    November 20, 2023 - 1:45PM

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"Note, that Tesla includes climate controls and many other things when calculating range. This gives you real world range, which is different from EPA range."

This is 100% wrong. Tesla has always calculated range using rated range per kWh multiplied by rated pack size.

EhCanadian (not verified)    November 20, 2023 - 5:48AM

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"True EPA range" - No, the "true" range is the real-world range in real-world driving scenarios using real-world climate control features - of which this thing had 266 miles. EPA is a meaningless number that people rarely achieve in the real-world. If this article is correct, a real-world 266 miles can be inflated to 400 EPA miles, it only proves how useless and inaccurate EPA ranges are.