Road trips are the only place this really matters and it would definitely make things better. Of course it wouldn’t be worth it if it made the car significantly heavier. But eventually we’ll have enough density this will be possible.
Advantages (some already mentioned):
Faster charging, faster road trips
Less Range anxiety
Flexibility in trip planning - I have already had a couple trips where I could not take the Tesla, due to range issues.
Built in buffer to battery degradation
Enables even higher performance.
It is just a matter of time...
For most folks, I don't think these make a big enough difference. Stopping on a road trip every ~2-2.5hr for food, gas, bio break, stretch feet, etc is fairly normal with any vehicle, which the current LR does already.
Tesla is committed to building out the supercharger network to fill gaps, this progressively eliminates trip planning issues as more and more stations come online. In 2020, they brought online 78 new stations in the US, the gap is closing. I believe this is their strategy to reduce the need for them to sacrifice more cells in each vehicle.
I'd be willing to wager a good sum on cash that we will not see a LR+ (or 100kWh) battery with the current cell design, at least in the next couple years, dependent on competition. Tesla is cell constrained, and depending on how successful the CyberTruck is (likely with a ~100-200kWh pack), they will need the batteries for other projects. Since they are cell constrained, there is an opportunity cost to put more cells in a single sales unit. They need to charge a premium for that alone, not to mention the additional cost of cells. At $150/kWh, a 100kwH pack would cost about $3300 in cells alone, so I'd imagine Tesla might want ~$5,000, if not more, for the additional range, and that range would be likely be ~80mi more than the LR today. That additional 80mi or range will decrease due to highway efficiency on road trips, where most uses would likely need it the most. So is 50-60mi of additional HWY range worth $5k+? I don't see the value proposition, which is likely why they aren't offering it.
