Tesla Cybertruck electric pickup truck disassembly shows that the battery pack is "half empty"

On April 10, the disassembly of the Tesla Cybertruck electric pickup showed that its battery pack seemed to be "half empty", which confused the outside world. Tesla's chief engineer confirmed this, but said he would rather regard it as "half full".

As an electric pickup truck, Cybertruck's battery capacity (123 kWh) ranks last among its peers. In the past, Tesla relied on its excellent efficiency to make up for the disadvantage of smaller battery capacity, but this strategy does not seem to apply to Cybertruck, and the vehicle's range has disappointed many users, especially lower than the level claimed at the time of release.

To address the range issue, Tesla has introduced an optional "extended range" battery pack, but it is not yet available on the market.

Munro, the company that disassembled the Cybertruck, recently opened up its battery pack and found a lot of empty space between the 4680 battery layer and the top plate. Munro engineers pointed out that the battery pack is "basically half empty," and Cybertruck's chief engineer Wes Morrill cleverly responded that he prefers to think of it as "half full."

The biggest question at the moment is why Tesla designed the Cybertruck's battery pack to be "half empty"? Many netizens believe that this may be to add another layer of 4680 batteries in the future, thereby doubling the battery capacity. However, this is not certain at the moment. Although there is indeed a lot of space left in the battery pack, it is not clear whether a whole layer of new batteries can be placed.

And if that's the case, Tesla's approach is puzzling. Since there is room, why not provide a larger capacity battery pack to achieve the promised range? There may be many explanations for this. Perhaps Tesla believes that a large battery pack will increase costs or affect the overall production of Cybertruck. Another possibility is that Tesla does not want the vehicle to carry extra weight all the time, so it chose a removable "extended range" battery pack solution. It is not clear what Tesla is considering, because the cost of the "extended range" battery pack will not be low either.