Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
For context: Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019, promising 500-plus miles of range for the tri-motor version at $70,000. When it actually shipped in late 2023, the top model delivered 320 miles at $99,990. Tesla’s proposed fix was a $16,000 battery pack the size of a dishwasher that lived in the truck bed and required a service appointment to install. That fix was delayed from early 2025 to mid-2025, had its range promise trimmed from 470-plus miles to 445 miles, and was then cancelled entirely in May 2025, with refunds issued to everyone who’d put down deposits ranging from $500 to $2,000. The company has sold roughly 46,000 Cybertrucks against Elon Musk’s claim of one million reservations, and at one point stopped accepting the truck as a trade-in.
What's most surprising is that they manage to make the trailer look uglier than the car. (Tesla/USPTO)
Back to the story… Tesla has filed a patent dual-battery management system that would allow the Cybertruck to tow a trailer containing an auxiliary battery pack, which is the automotive engineering equivalent of bringing a second lunch because the first one you packed is mostly napkins.
Patent application US 2026/0048683 A1, titled “Electric Vehicle Range Extender Integration,” was filed on August 15, 2024, and published last month. The filing date is notable because at that point, Tesla was still actively selling a $16,000 bed-mounted range extender to Cybertruck owners, the same one it would cancel nine months later after delaying it twice, reducing its promised range, and quietly removing it from the website.
The patent describes two physical configurations. The first is the bed-mounted installation that Tesla already cancelled, included here apparently for historical completeness or possibly emotional damage. The second places the auxiliary battery inside a towed trailer connected via a high-voltage interface at the hitch, solving the fundamental problem that killed version one: the bed-mounted pack ate a third of the Cybertruck’s cargo space and could only be installed or removed at a Tesla service center, which is the kind of ownership experience typically associated with ankle monitors.
The patent filing does not constitute a product announcement, and Tesla has filed thousands of patents that never became products. But it does confirm that at least one team inside the company was drawing up plans for an even more ambitious battery trailer while another team was composing refund emails. The two groups may or may not have been in the same building. The filing makes no mention of a timeline, a price, or whether anyone at Tesla has looked at Cybertruck sales figures recently.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
