Lifestyle
Tesla Road Trip Battery Range Planning
My Tesla road trip down to NJ was a success, for the most part, but it didn’t come without some high stress range situations due to some poor planning on my part.
The Setup
Tesla road trips for me almost always takes place after a full day’s worth of work which includes 100 miles of driving, something I always have to factor in with my range planning. At the time of writing, there are no Superchargers anywhere near my home or work which makes Tesla road trip planning slightly more difficult.
On my first road trip I charged up to 225 miles at the Tesla store near my work before heading home and beginning my road trip. But this time around, I wasn’t so lucky since every charging spot at the Tesla store was taken.
Knowing this might happen, I had a “plan B” which involved leaving work early and charging at home to give me enough buffer range before heading out again on my Tesla road trip. Unforeseen circumstances at the business left me staying much later than I wanted to. It also happened to be the day leading up to a holiday weekend so traffic was terrible.
I got home with about 140 miles of range left – far less than what I started with on the prior trip. The family and I were in a rush since I got home late and we were all anxious to get out of town.
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EVTripPlanner indicated that I needed 122 rated miles to get to the first Supercharger in CT which meant that I had approximately 18 miles of wiggle room.
While I had another “Plan C” which would route us through the Greenwich, RI Supercharger, the downside was that it would take us into some high congestion areas and add additional time to the commute.
Time was ticking down and I needed to get out of town within a reasonable evening hour so I decided that 18 miles was plenty of buffer. We stuck to the original plan and went for it.
The Countdown
Just like on our previous trip, we stopped at our favorite sushi place, Hanami, along the way. There was 44 miles of range left and 29 miles remaining before reaching the Supercharger.
The Model S was already getting cranky at this point due to the low state of charge along with the nighttime temperatures in New England. I didn’t think too much of it since we were just stopping for a quick dinner and the outside temperature was still above freezing point (32F).
My mind ran rampant over dinner and I couldn’t stop thinking about the remaining battery range. I knew there was a Level 2 charger nearby (but not walking distance) that could add a whopping 17 miles per hour had at the expense of waiting in the middle of nowhere only to make a small dent in range. It didn’t seem worth it so we got back in the car and decided to head directly to the Darien South Supercharger.
The next 30 miles would take us on a heralding ride as we watched the battery range countdown at a rapid rate, as we traversed hilly portions along the journey, and approach the actual miles remaining before reaching the Supercharger. In the back of my mind I knew the Model S has a 10-20 miles of buffer but I really didn’t want to count on it. I slowed my driving speed to stretch my range as much as possible.
As the range crept into the single digits the dashboard indicated that the Model S would begin trimming my energy usage (disabling unnecessary energy drawing features). This was just one more blow to my confidence.
The Arrival
We made it to the Supercharger with 2 miles of range to spare and with great sighs of relief from all.
While we only needed about 130 miles of range to get to our final destination of this Tesla road trip, the first leg of the journey left some battle wounds. My daughter literally refused to get back into the car until it had 200 miles of range left on it.
The rest of the journey along with the return trip was pretty uneventful but I think we’ll all remember this thrilling incident for a very long time to come.
Unlike ICE cars, there’s no quick fill for a Model S except for Superchargers. While there are alternative charging stations everywhere, they’re so slow in charging that it becomes nearly useless, in terms of practicality, especially as it relates to long-range Tesla road trips.
Either way there was lessons learned: don’t take shortcuts and spend the time to charge; I should have given a large enough buffer by stopping at the closer Greenwich, RI supercharger or even slept at home and left early the next day with a full charge.
With new Superchargers popping up all the time hopefully we’ll have less and less opportunity to make poor decisions, but even Elon can’t protect us from our own mistakes.
Elon Musk
Trump’s invite for Elon just reshuffled Tesla’s big Signature Delivery Event
Tesla rescheduled its final Model S farewell to May 20 after Musk joined Trump in China.
Tesla has rescheduled its Model S and Model X Signature Edition delivery event to Wednesday, May 20, 2026, after abruptly calling off the original May 12 celebration. The event will take place at Tesla’s factory at 45500 Fremont Boulevard in Fremont, California, the same location where the Model S first rolled off the line in 2012. Invitees received a follow-up email asking them to reconfirm attendance and download a new QR code ticket, with Tesla noting that all travel and accommodation expenses remain the buyer’s responsibility.
The reason behind the original cancellation came into focus the same day it was announced. President Trump invited Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, and executives from Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and Meta to join his trip to China this week for a summit with President Xi Jinping. The agenda covers trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan, and the Iran war, following weeks of escalating friction between Washington and Beijing over AI technology, sanctions, and rare earth exports. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am very much looking forward to my trip to China, an amazing Country, with a Leader, President Xi, respected by all.”
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The vehicles at the center of all this are the last Model S and Model X units Tesla will ever build. Priced at $159,420 each, the 250 Model S and 100 Model X Signature Edition units come finished in Garnet Red with a one-year no-resale agreement, giving Tesla right of first refusal if the owner decides to sell. As Teslarati reported, the Model S defined Tesla’s early identity as a serious luxury automaker, and the Fremont factory line that built it is now being converted to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots.
Musk’s inclusion in the China delegation drew attention given his very public relationship with Trump, and the invitation signals the two have moved past and past grievances. Trump originally brought Musk on to lead the Department of Government Efficiency following his inauguration, and despite a sharp public dispute in mid-2025, the two have appeared together repeatedly in recent months. A seat on the China trip, the most diplomatically consequential visit of Trump’s current term, puts Musk back at the table on U.S. economic policy at a moment when Tesla’s China revenue remains one of the company’s most important financial pillars.
Lifestyle
Tesla Semi hauls fresh Cybercab batch as Robotaxi era takes hold
A Tesla Semi was filmed hauling Cybercab units out of Giga Texas for the first time.
A Tesla Semi loaded with Cybercab units was recently filmed leaving Gigafactory Texas, marking what appears to be the first documented delivery run of Tesla’s autonomous two-seater. The footage shows multiple Cybercabs secured on a flatbed trailer being hauled by a production Tesla Semi, a truck rated for a gross combination weight of 82,000 lbs. The location is consistent with Giga Texas in Austin, where Cybercab production has been ramping since February 2026.
The sighting follows a wave of Cybercab activity at the Austin facility. In late April, drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer spotted approximately 60 Cybercabs parked in two organized groups in the factory’s outbound lot, the largest concentration observed to date. Units being staged in an outbound lot is a standard pre-delivery step, and the Semi footage is the logical next frame in that sequence.
En route with @tesla_semi pic.twitter.com/ZfuOjaeLH1
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) May 7, 2026
This is not the first time Tesla has used its own Semi to move Tesla products. When the Semi was unveiled in 2017, Musk noted it would be used for Tesla’s own operations, and over the years Semi prototypes were spotted carrying cargo ranging from concrete weights to Tesla vehicles being delivered to consumers. In 2023, a Semi was photographed transporting a Cybertruck on a trailer ahead of that vehicle’s delivery launch.
The Cybercab itself was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event on October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk stated at the event that Tesla intends to produce the Cybercab before 2027. The first production unit rolled off the Giga Texas line on February 17, 2026, with Musk posting on X: “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.”
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once multiple factories reach full design capacity, with the company targeting a price under $30,000 per unit. Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
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