As the auto industry transitions to electric vehicles (EVs), many have aired concerns that there will not be enough charging stations. According to one new report, many landlords and real estate owners in Los Angeles, California are rushing to construct new EV charging hardware at apartments, stores, office buildings and more.
Charging stations are not only considered a necessity for new housing developments in Los Angeles, according to the LA Times, but they’re also an opportunity for owners of convenience stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations, movie theaters and other retailers to make money while EV owners charge. Tesla and other companies are rapidly deploying new charging stations across the country, and the company recently built its 50,000th Supercharger stall.
Still, it’s difficult to say if the efforts to expand charging networks are enough, as many in the Los Angeles metro have pointed out.
One planning commissioner demanded project manager Hamid Behdad, who was overseeing a $350 million condominium skyscraper project in Los Angeles, to quadruple the number of charging stations at the project. Behdad eventually agreed to the last-minute change, now saying he’s “extremely glad that commissioner forced us” to build chargers at about 20 percent of the structure’s parking spots.
“When you are in the heat of the hearing in the last leg of the proposal, you aren’t going to say no,” Behdad said. “If we didn’t have these 90 chargers, we would be in real trouble selling units.”
As the demand for Tesla and other EVs continues to grow, many remain concerned about the state of the public charging infrastructure that will need to keep vehicles charged. The pace of EV adoption has accelerated rapidly in California, and it’s expected to follow suit throughout the U.S. in the coming years.
If demand wasn’t increasing enough on its own, California has also enacted a ban on the sale of new gas cars starting in 2035, and the move has since been followed by a number of states and even other countries.
One environmentally conscious housing developer, Cityview, is attempting to add as many charging stalls as allowed by a building’s electrical system. However, Cityview CEO Sean Burton notes that some older properties offer limited levels of available power supply for charging hardware, making it difficult.
“In general I think building owners are adopting more slowly than they should,” Burton said. “We try to be more leading edge on sustainability issues.”
ZRS Management, a property manager overseeing 76,000 apartment units is looking to retrofit power outlets in its garages to allow 210-volt, Level 2 charging, according to Vice President of Operations Jackie Impellitier. These systems can take roughly three to eight hours to charge an EV, and tenants have charging fees added to their utility bills.
“The thing we are all acknowledging is having charging stations is no longer an amenity, it’s a necessity,” Impellitier said of keeping tenants and garnering new ones. “We are going to start losing renters if we don’t have easy and convenient access” to chargers.
Several automakers, most recently including Jaguar, have signed on board to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), including plans to add the company’s charging port to their future EV releases. Ford was the first major automaker to adopt the equipment, as announced earlier this year in a Twitter Spaces call with Elon Musk. The company has since been joined by General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Hyundai, Honda and more.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters.
The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.
xAI’s turbine deal details
News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.
As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
xAI’s ambitions
Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”
The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development.
xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website.
A $20 billion Series E round
As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others.
Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”
xAI’s core mission
Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.
xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5.
“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock received a price target update from Pierre Ferragu of Wall Street firm New Street Research, citing the company’s growing lead in self-driving and autonomy.
On Tuesday, Ferragu bumped his price target from $520 to $600, stating that the consensus from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was that Tesla’s lead in autonomy has been sustained, is growing, and sits at a multiple-year lead over its competitors.
CES 2026 validates Tesla’s FSD strategy, but there’s a big lag for rivals: analyst
“The signal from Vegas is loud and clear,” the analyst writes. “The industry isn’t catching up to Tesla; it is actively validating Tesla’s strategy…just with a 12-year lag.”
The note shows that the company’s prowess in vehicle autonomy is being solidified by lagging competitors that claim to have the best method. The only problem is that Tesla’s Vision-based approach, which it adopted back in 2022 with the Model 3 and Model Y initially, has been proven to be more effective than competitors’ approach, which utilizes other technology, such as LiDAR and sensors.
Currently, Tesla shares are sitting at around $433, as the company’s stock price closed at $432.96 on Tuesday afternoon.
Ferragu’s consensus on Tesla shares echoes that of other Wall Street analysts who are bullish on the company’s stock and position within the AI, autonomy, and robotics sector.
Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note in mid-December that he anticipates Tesla having a massive 2026, and could reach a $3 trillion valuation this year, especially with the “AI chapter” taking hold of the narrative at the company.
Ives also said that the big step in the right direction for Tesla will be initiating production of the Cybercab, as well as expanding on the Robotaxi program through the next 12 months:
“…as full-scale volume production begins with the autonomous and robotics roadmap…The company has started to test the all-important Cybercab in Austin over the past few weeks, which is an incremental step towards launching in 2026 with important volume production of Cybercabs starting in April/May, which remains the golden goose in unlocking TSLA’s AI valuation.”
Tesla analyst breaks down delivery report: ‘A step in the right direction’
Tesla has transitioned from an automaker to a full-fledged AI company, and its Robotaxi and Cybercab programs, fueled by the Full Self-Driving suite, are leading the charge moving forward. In 2026, there are major goals the company has outlined. The first is removing Safety Drivers from vehicles in Austin, Texas, one of the areas where it operates a ride-hailing service within the U.S.
Ultimately, Tesla will aim to launch a Level 5 autonomy suite to the public in the coming years.
Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines
Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round
