Tesla to offer battery upgrades for Roadster

Tesla has announced that it will offer battery upgrades for the Roadster that was first introduced back in 2008.

The updates include replacing the old battery cells with all-new packs that increase the standard car's range from 390km to 547km - but at a considerable expense.

The upgrade, offered to current owners, is said to cost an incredible $38,000.

Called the R80 3.0 battery upgrade, the update involves an all-new 80kWh lithium ion battery cell retrofitted to the Roadster that went out of production in 2012.

Originally it was announced in December 2014 by Tesla owner, Elon Musk, that the company would soon offer an upgrade for the firm's first car, the Roadster, but since then development has been slow.

With little commonality to the battery packs made for the Model S and Model X cars, according to electric car blog, electrek.co, only two or three battery packs for the Roadster can be made in any given week, because the cells are effectively handmade.

Even at the incredible $38,000 a pack, Tesla expects to make a loss when labour and logistics are factored in, says a source for the electric-car maker speaking to the blog.

As well as the new battery, Tesla will also throw in a new styling kit that lowers the drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.31Cd - reducing wind resistance by 15 per cent.

Globally, 2600 Roadsters were made and sold, a small number of the pure-electric sports cars reaching Australia in 2011.

Those cars were priced at $208,000 for the 215kW/400Nm Roadster that was, in effect, a thoroughly re-engineered Lotus Elise - but was even quicker to 100km/h, with the base model taking less than 4.0 seconds to hit the benchmark.

Performance is not expected to change with the upgrades, despite a slight increase in weight, because the new batteries offset the deficit by maintaining voltage even under hard acceleration when the old car’s cells were prone to lose charge.

It's thought Aussie Roadster owners will soon be offered the chance to upgrade their vehicles through Tesla Australia's service and technical centres in either Sydney or Melbourne.

In the US owners are being asked by Tesla for a $6500 deposit to be placed on the waiting list for the new batteries to be made.