Tes’ is more: Model to hum for 400 miles

Tesla’s upcoming thirdedition Roadster sports cars will go about 50 percent farther — thanks to improved batteries and other upgrades, the company said on Friday.

The upgrades — which also include improved aerodynamics and less grippy tires — will give the twoseater Roadster 3.0 a range of more than 400 miles, according to CEO Elon Musk.

That’s enough juice to get you from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

The previous Roadster model had a range of roughly 244 miles — which would have left a Los AngelestoSan Francisco driver stranded in Fresno.

The Roadster is a convertible introduced in 2008. About 2,400 of the electric cars were sold before Tesla halted production at the end of 2011.

Tesla’s sedan, the Model S, was introduced in June 2012 and is currently the company’s only model for sale.

Nearly 8,000 of Model S vehicles were delivered in the third quarter, the company said.

The Roadster update, Tesla said, “applies what we’ve learned in Model S to Roadster.”

Among specific improvements, a new battery cell was credited with delivering 31 percent more energy than the original, while new tires with a lower rolling resistance coefficient were described as a 20 percent improvement.

A retrofit “aero kit,” meanwhile, was said to add another 15 percent.

“Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 4050 [percent] improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0,” Tesla said in a blog post.

Investors responded favorably to the Roadster update, sending the stock up 2.5 percent to close at $227.82 per share. The shares are up 51.5 percent in 2014.