Tesla recently revealed some—but certainly not all—of the features and specifications for its much hyped Model 3 sedan. While it lists a 220-mile range for the standard version and 310 miles for the Long Range model, the company didn’t release the actual battery capacity.
On a conference call with financial analysts to discuss a new bond offering, CEO Elon Musk verified that the battery capacities for the two versions of the Model 3 are about 50 kWh and 75 kWh.
Although Tesla has hinted that its sins of omission are perhaps part of its Apple-like marketing mystique, as well as a move away from kWh-based alphanumeric badging—P100D, for instance—that buyers don’t always understand, the move has understandably made shoppers and investors a bit nervous. In an electric car, the battery is, after all, the single most expensive and valuable component in the vehicle.
A simple conversion using the EPA filing’s listed voltage of the battery pack, at 350 volts, and the energy capacity, at 230 ampere-hours, returns a capacity of 80.5 kWh. Although CEO Elon Musk had previously said that the capacity of the top Model 3 wouldn’t be beyond 75 kWh, it’s likely he was referring to usable capacity, which is often around 90 percent (or a bit more for Tesla, some sources say) of the battery pack’s stated capacity.