Tesla have made the world giddy about the prospect of electric cars and, while the technology in general is only now being introduced to South Africa (in limited areas), we’re hoping to see more of them on the road in future. Because technology. But if there’s one aspect of an electric car that is off-putting it’s the range that they are capable of.

Without ‘fuel’ stations at steady intervals, you’re looking at frequent top-ups and that whole laptop-in-search-of-a-power-outlet feeling with your car. But Tesla is working on mitigating that. In fact, they’re already just about capable of improving the range of their EVs but they’re not going to. Not yet, anyway.

Speaking to AutoExpress Tesla founder Elon Musk, when not speaking about colonising Mars, said of the future range of Teslas (and other electric vehicles) that “It will be possible to have a 500-mile range car. In fact we could do it quite soon, but it would increase the price. Over time you could expect to have that kind of range.”

500 miles is just over 800km, which is enough to get from Johannesburg to the coast with only a single power top-up. We’d take that over a 200 to 300km range any day but for now it would put an electrical vehicle even further out of our price ranges than is currently the case.

Maybe it’s a good thing that SA is just now getting access to the infrastructure needed to make use of the tech, the bugs may be worked out by the time the tech becomes widespread this side of the world. That doesn’t stop us from wanting one now, though.

Source: AutoExpress via Digital Trends