Lifestyle
Becoming a Tesla Destination Charging Participant
Last month I shared with you the story of my successful recruitment of a restaurant/brewery into the Tesla Destination Charging program. It was a story I hoped would inspire others to do the same. Some of you asked me questions about what it was like for the business and I was curious myself, so I set out to get answers and hear it from their side.
The long story short? Piece of cake!
How did this all start? Some crazy owner (me) sent an unsolicited email, informed one of the restaurant’s owners of the program and vowed to come for a visit. On Friday, November 27th, that visit occurred. After I left, Mark the owner of Breaker Brewing Company checked on the kitchen and determined he could spare a few moments to contact Tesla’s Destination Charging program and inquire. As with any small, independent business, the biggest question Mark had was how much of an investment joining the program required. His budget for such a non-essential business expense was, in essence, non-existent. Sure he knew they would be on the hook for the cost of electricity for the actual charging, but that nominal amount was not the main concern.
Pretty quickly (Monday or Tuesday of the following week) Tesla responded to Mark’s inquiry. He assumes they checked out the location using mapping software first because right from that first phone conversation, he was immediately informed his location was a good fit. He had provided the address in his first contact and already knew he had an unused parking space along a building where the chargers could be installed.
“We love technology here.”
To be honest, it didn’t take much convincing on my part to get the restaurant on board with this idea. They were really receptive from the beginning and so the rest was smooth sailing. A pair with experience in the engineering field, Mark admitted that he and his co-owner loved technology.
The main questions that he had revolved around their responsibilities. For example, how much up front costs or fees they would be on the hook for, what the program consisted of and whether or not Tesla would assist with getting adequate power to the building where he intended the chargers to be installed.
In order to answer those questions, Tesla instructed Mark to get an estimate from an electrician to run the additional power and install the chargers. Jonathan Katz, Project Manager in the Destination Charging group was Mark’s main contact. One very important thing that Mark wanted to share with me was that from Day 1, Jonathan was phenomenal to work with. His email signature contained a direct phone number which Mark was able to call with questions. Reportedly Jonathan answered every call and reaching out to him never amounted to voicemails or phone tag. He also answered every question, big or small. The same thing applied to the electrician who was hired to do the job. (Praising Tesla for communication is something I don’t see often so this really stood out to me and is a sign of their true commitment to making charging accessible.)
Destination chargers can be found across a variety of hotels, restaurants and shopping centers [Source: Tesla Motors]
The next step in the process was getting an estimate for the electrical work. Tesla had recommended two electricians that were relatively close but not in the same town. Mark asked if he could hire his own because he happened to know of one who was reliable, professional and excellent at fit and finish of his work. Tesla said that it was no problem at all and awaited the estimate. As noted above, the electrician was able to easily contact Jonathan Katz directly to have any questions answered about the process. Once the estimate came in, Mark was ready to get back to Tesla.
The quote was $2,800 for installation of two 80 amp HPWCs including upgrading the building’s service to accommodate that kind of juice. The job also included running the chargers all the way outside the building to the correct placement. When Mark informed his contact at Tesla about the estimate, they confirmed this was within their reimbursement cap so the entire thing would be covered. Breaker Brewery would not have to come out of pocket even one dollar. That made the decision to move forward extremely easy.
Breaker Brewery would not have to come out of pocket even one dollar.
The next part of the process went equally smooth. Tesla had accepted the cost (their cap, which may or may not be negotiable and may or may not be region-specific, was reported to be $3,000) and sent a congratulations email about being accepted into the program. Next Tesla mailed out the chargers, which arrived in about five business days. I am assuming that what made me think this was an ideal location for a destination charger was also noticed by Tesla and thus they accepted the location into the program without any convincing.
The amount of effort and leg work the restaurant had to do to be a part of this program was small. They were required to fill out an application, which was neither long nor complicated. It contained some basic information about their location, business and what they offer. (I’m picturing the wifi and restroom symbols you see on the navigation screen when you touch on a destination charging marker.)
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Two Tesla HPWCs installed at Breaker Brewing Company in Wilkes-Barre, PA
Once the chargers were installed and powered up, Tesla had to be informed. At this point the one and only hiccup occurred. For one reason or another, there was a miscommunication that resulted in Tesla not realizing it was done. After some time, Mark reached out to follow up about payment to the electrician. Once Jonathan realized what had occurred, he quickly resolved the issue and sent the payment. Mark estimates that had the miscommunication not occurred, the electrician probably would have only waited 7-10 for payment after completion. It bears repeating that in the case of this installation, everything was reimbursed. The whole job fit into the reimbursement limits and the restaurant had to pay nothing.
Tesla Destination Charging partners [Source: Tesla Motors charging map]
On January 15, 2016, the chargers were powered up. That means in just 49 days (including the Christmas and New Years holidays!) Breaker Brewery went from asking about the destination charging program to having working chargers. It took 3-5 days for their location to show up on Tesla’s destination charging map. I will assume the in-navigation display took the same but did not verify it was showing until yesterday.
Within the first 10 days or so of operation, which included my post about it as well as sharing on both TMC and the Tesla Forums, three different owners called the restaurant to thank them for installing a charger. (The Tesla community doing what we do.) Thus far only one owner has actually charged but Mark hopes to see an uptick as word spreads. Interestingly enough, the chargers have become a topic of conversation for non-Tesla owning patrons of the restaurant. Every Friday and Saturday someone notices and asks about it. There is a general curiosity that I hope will have far reaching implications with Model 3 and beyond. Certainly people want to know they will be able to charge at various locations before even considering the idea of some day owning an electric vehicle. To Mark’s knowledge, no other EV drivers have attempted to charge. I asked this question because I once saw an electric Smart Car pull into a Tesla Supercharger and attempt to plug in.
Some additional questions I asked were:
- What did you have to negotiate? Nothing
- How much did you come out of pocket? Nothing
- How as finance handled? Tesla mailed the chargers and paid the electrician directly
- Was the process easy? Extremely
- What else? I emailed Nissan and GM to see if they have similar programs. No one ever responded.
- Final notes from the owner: I would recommend this to any business!
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
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Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Elon Musk
The real reason Elon Musk wants every car connected to space
Elon Musk says all cars will eventually need Starlink to handle massive AI bandwidth demand.
Elon Musk is making the case that satellite internet, not fiber or cellular towers, will end up wired into every car on the road. In a string of posts on X, the SpaceX CEO wrote that all cars will have Starlink in the future and called satellite connectivity the only way to get super high bandwidth to billions of vehicles.
The posts started with Musk endorsing a Cloudflare forecast that traffic generated by autonomous AI agents will soon dwarf traffic generated by humans browsing the internet, a shift he described as not a close call at all. From there he narrowed the argument to infrastructure, writing that the only system that can support the insanely fast bandwidth growth needed by AI is Starlink, before extending the logic to cars specifically.
AI agentic Internet traffic will obviously VASTLY exceed human usage. Not a close call at all.
Cloudflare’s forecast is accurate. https://t.co/VztgrinN5k pic.twitter.com/Wo4FiRKjPU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s own hardware decisions. On July 20, Tesla confirmed the Cybercab would ship with a Starlink V5 terminal built into its roof, the first time the company had put satellite hardware in a production vehicle. A day later, Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, explained the connection wasn’t there for safety and that Cybercab’s driving stack runs entirely on onboard cameras and compute, while the satellite link exists for navigation, customer service, and fleet management instead. Musk followed with his own post about the feature, saying riders would be able to watch 4K streaming video during rides.
By July 22, Musk had already said Starlink would extend beyond Cybercab to Tesla’s full lineup. Sunday’s posts push that same logic outward again, this time framed as a requirement across the industry rather than a feature specific to Tesla, and tied directly to the bandwidth AI systems are expected to consume.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
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The AI argument has been building on SpaceX’s side for months. The company has an FCC filing pending for a third generation Starlink constellation, and it has separately proposed Starmind, a constellation of up to a million satellites designed to run AI computation directly in orbit rather than just relay data. Musk has said he expects space to become the cheapest place to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Starlink and Starmind serve different jobs inside that vision, one moving data and the other processing it, but Sunday’s posts treat vehicles as one more category of hardware that will eventually need both.
None of this changes anything for Tesla owners today. Cars already on the road keep running on LTE and Wi-Fi, and Tesla hasn’t outlined a retrofit path for existing vehicles. The July 22 commitment applies to future production, not the fleet already delivered. What Musk added on Sunday is the reasoning: satellite connectivity isn’t a Cybercab novelty, it’s a bet that ground based networks won’t keep up with how much data cars, robots, and AI systems are about to generate.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
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It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
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