Tesla Model 3 battery warranty swaps bring extra range and charge limit

Tesla is offering to retrofit older Model 3 batteries to the newer phosphate packs that come in versions like the RWD Highland.

Upon requesting a Model 3 battery warranty replacements, owners are getting letters suggesting that they can either wait weeks for a new battery with the nickel-based Panasonic 2170 cells, or grab a new LFP pack right away.

Tesla warns that this will result in a slight hit to the Model 3 0-60 acceleration since the new iron phosphate battery packs are heavier, but it also offers to upgrade the vehicle's suspension springs for free, too.

Besides being cheaper, however, the newer LFP chemistry has many other virtues. First off, it is safer and more stable, allowing it to be charged to 100% every time without causing any excess degradation.

This alone brings more range on a charge than with the 2170 nickel packs that Tesla advises to be charged to 80% to prevent premature aging. Panasonic recently announced that it is working on better 2170 cells with higher energy density that it will start supplying to Tesla later this year, or in 2025.

Tesla uses them in the long-range Model 3 and Model Y versions that it sells in the US, but it will take a while until it would offer the enhanced 2170 cells as a retrofit. In the meantime, the LFP battery swap offer awaits everyone who will be in for a warranty replacement.

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