Tesla is expanding the range of the Roadster to 400 miles

According to a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the company is due to announce details Friday on how the Roadsters will be able to go almost 400 miles between charges. The current Roadsters can go about 245 miles between charges, according to Tesla. Tesla stopped production of the Roadster in January 2012, as it started to ramp up production of its very successful Model S. It sold only 2,150 of the two-seat Roadsters through the end of 2011, according to a company filing.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company’s Roadster model is getting a battery upgrade to extend its range from 244 miles to almost 400 miles. It’s a significant boost, and one that means the Roadster will be able to outdo even the company’s flagship Model S, which has a range of 265 miles. Introduced in 2008, the Roadster was Tesla’s first production vehicle and though it has been overshadowed somewhat by the newer Model S, the company has been teasing a major upgrade for it since June this year. Musk and company are now rewarding the roughly 2,500 early adopters who bought into Tesla’s vision of the electric car years before it became so widely accepted. The upgrade is expected to come in the form of a full battery replacement, though full details won’t be available until later today. Musk also goes on to say that a similar upgrade is “not coming soon” for the Model S, but will happen eventually.