After a hacker revealed Tesla’s plans in March to release a range-topping version of the company’s Model S, Dutch regulators on approved versions of both the Model S and Model X with the new battery on Friday.
According to Kenteken TV, European regulators have approved both new versions — each dubbed P100D — of the Model X and Model S for road use. The power pack in both cars will be of a 100kWh capacity, which, according to the listed range of the Model S P100D, would allow the cars to travel 380 miles on a single charge.
While the company’s upcoming Model 3, which will serve as a more affordable alternative as part of its currently fleet, has continued attracting buzz, it isn’t confirmed whether the model would include the rumored 100kWh capacity.
Though nothing has been confirmed by Tesla regarding the new battery, that doesn’t mean the company has been entirely quiet about the rumors.
After hacker John Hughes discovered the company’s plans to unveil the P100D models in March, he tweeted at the company and CEO Elon Musk, revealing what he had learned via cryptographic hash function.
He later accused Tesla of retaliating against him for revealing the company’s secret information, through both a series of tweets and a post of the Tesla Motors Club forum.
“Looks like I’ve definitely pissed off someone at Tesla now. They used some method I was unaware of in another process to go in and delete the pending 2.13.77 update from my car,” he wrote. “Basically they sent the car some command that told it to restart the updater, then the updater restarted and queried the firmware server, which, to its surprise, no longer had an update for me.”
The tweet-happy Musk responded, saying that he wasn’t responsible for the downgrade, later joking that “good hacking is a gift.”
