WASHINGTON – Last week, Tesla announced new features for its convertible Roadster model, reports the Washington Post, including a battery upgrade that increases its capacity by 31%.

“The result is an electric vehicle that can reliably travel about 350 miles before needing a recharge, and possibly more in ideal conditions. That’s pretty similar — or even better — than many conventional gasoline-powered cars. The University of Michigan estimates that the average fuel economy of a new car in 2014 was about 25 miles per gallon. With a 12- or 13-gallon tank, that gets you about 325 miles on a single fill-up,” writes the Washington Post.

“There is a set of speeds and driving conditions,” Tesla said in a company blog post, “where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles." 

The company notes that the old Roadster could travel up to 244 miles on a single charge, which makes the new Roadster's 400-mile range “a nearly 2x improvement,” according to the news report.

The timing for Tesla’s announcement is right, suggests the news source, noting that analysts such as Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jones have said that the company’s prospects “will be seriously impacted by lower gasoline prices.”

Jones also says that Tesla will only sell about 300,000 vehicles by the end of the decade and not the half-million he originally predicted. However, lower crude oil prices won’t affect Tesla’s current customers, Jones says, because they are typically wealthy and don’t pay attention to gas prices. “But as the company tries to sell cars to a broader base, few consumers may opt for electric cars,” notes the news source.