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How Tesla’s pay per use ‘Supercharger Credits’ may work after all
Since our first report of ‘Supercharger Credits’ being discovered under a new payment section of the MyTesla page, presumably to allow Tesla owners to pre-purchase allotments of kilowatt hours for Supercharging, I’ve had sometime to think about what this might really mean to drivers. This is despite previously believing Tesla would not be instituting a pay per minute/pay per kWh option simply because I thought it would be a hassle, but I stand corrected.
Tesla will likely offer a ‘free long distance for life’ option for Model 3 owners. This option would be similar to the current offerings for Model S and Model X, and would be offered as either an up front cost to enable, an included benefit for higher priced models, or both. Might I be wrong? Surely and it wouldn’t be the first time. But I’ll say it again: I still think they will do this. They may or may not add rules or limitations to prevent abuse. That’s another topic and has been hashed out plenty. As for Model 3 owners who don’t go this route, here is what I picture when I think of the idea of Supercharger Credits.
How they work: Each successful visit to a Supercharger, regardless of minutes spent or kWh used would be equal to one credit. Keep it simple. The alternative would be to process potentially several hundred thousand Model 3 drivers with their own unique utility bill. This seems far too complicated – certainly possible, but envisioning the variables associated with keeping track of energy consumption on such a granular level, and then managing the accounting behind it, per driver, doesn’t seem like it would be the Tesla way. Plus, it’s illegal to sell energy to consumers in some States.
Having Supercharger credits based on a per single use model, perhaps even in a tiered structure (ie. usage beyond 25 kWh equals 1 credit, and so on) would allow Tesla to more easily sell credits on a mass scale.
How to start: Each Model 3 comes with some amount of credits to start. Tesla would be smart to do this because to me, the road trip experience and ease of using Superchargers is a major selling point. I’d want to entice people to keep doing it. Visibility of the cars on the road and chatting with onlookers in parking lots is more free advertising. You also hook customers to become repeat buyers or to upgrade. Or at the very least, to buy more credits. This is especially enticing for owners who may not intend to road trip often but who live more than 200 miles away from a service center or pickup location.
How to have fun: It’s your 1 year anniversary of ownership, take a trip on us! Here are 4 free credits. It’s Nikola Tesla’s birthday, 2 free credits. You just reached 50,000 gasoline free miles, 5 free credits! You get the picture.
How to take away transactional headaches: Allowing owners to upload credits in their My Tesla account ahead of time makes it easier for Tesla to administer, as well as an owner who may, for example, be flustered due to some extenuating circumstance and find themselves needing a charge. Knowing you have credits in your account and can just plug in is one less thing to worry about. I don’t know about you but I don’t have a credit card associated with my iTunes account. I much prefer to load on a $20 gift card once and draw down on it over time. I see credits working like this.
How to advertise without really advertising: Pick some nominal price per credit that sounds way more awesome than the cost of a tank of gas. “Five dollar fill up!” has a nice ring to it. (I think from 0 it would cost me $10 at home to fill up but the average supercharger visit is definitely not from 0 to 100% state of charge, and I would hope the average cost of juice at a Supercharger is less than the residential rate in a moderate-to-high priced market like Philadelphia, especially at locations with solar canopies.
Yes, this all sounds really cool and I think the market may end up demanding it so I bow before the brains at Tesla to make it happen if they deem it the best course of action. I just hope enough buyers either choose high margin options or buy the up front Supercharging option (if offered) so that there is enough cash to go around and build more chargers. But then again, Tesla could just take a page out of Trump’s book. “We’re gonna build chargers. Big, beautiful chargers. And we’re gonna’ make them pay for it!” Them being the retail giants whose parking lots the chargers will grace.
PS: Tesla, if you’re listening, I think “credits” need to be graphically represented like coins in Super Mario games.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
SpaceX joins the Golden Dome software group, deepening its role in America’s most expensive defense program.
SpaceX has joined a nine-company group developing the core operating software for the Golden Dome, America’s next-generation missile defense system. According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX is focused on integrating satellite communications for military operations and is working alongside eight other defense and artificial intelligence companies, including Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, and Aalyria Technologies, to build software connecting missile defense capabilities.
The Golden Dome concept dates back to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Armed Forces to construct the system before the end of his term. The system is planned to employ a constellation of thousands of satellites equipped with interceptors, with data centers in space providing automated control through an AI network.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome initiative, has described the software layer as a “glue layer” that would enable officers to manage and control radars, sensors, and missile batteries across services. The consortium is aiming to test the platform this summer.
Trump selected a design in May 2025 with a $175 billion price tag, expected to be operational by the end of his term in 2029, though the Congressional Budget Office projected the cost could reach $831 billion over two decades.
The Golden Dome role is only the latest in a string of military wins for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million task order on April 1, 2026 to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, covering two Falcon 9 launches beginning in Q3 2027. That came on top of more than $22 billion in government contracts held by SpaceX as of 2024, per CEO Gwynne Shotwell, spanning NASA resupply missions, classified intelligence satellites through its Starshield program, and military broadband.
The accumulation of defense contracts, now including a seat at the table on the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history, positions SpaceX as the dominant infrastructure provider for American national security in space. With a SpaceX IPO still on the horizon, each new contract adds weight to what is already one of the most consequential companies in aerospace history, raising real questions about how much of America’s defense architecture will depend on a single private operator before it ever trades publicly.
News
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
