Lifestyle
Tips on how to make the most of a Tesla road trip
Long road trips are one of the biggest sources of enjoyment a Tesla can bring. This coming from a former road trip hater who just wanted to get to whatever big city or beach she was traveling to quickly and at 39,000 feet. Really. I once flew from Philly to Pittsburgh. So why then, did I just knowingly and happily embark on 2,100 mile trip? Because road tripping in a Tesla is amazing.
I now much prefer Tesla road trips over flying. Veterans and new Tesla owners alike are well aware of the joys of the Supercharger network. Once you’ve mastered managing your battery range and using Superchargers, all that’s left is to enjoy the ride. I’d like to share with you some ways that I made the most of my recent trip. Each one greatly enhanced the experience.
Pack a water cooler
I have this 2-gallon jug and it has honestly revolutionized road travel. When most folks reach for coffee, I reach for cold water. Keeping hydrated has a myriad of benefits and only one downfall: needing facilities. Fortunately, you’re stopping every 2 hours or so to charge anyway so drink away. Pair this with one reusable water bottle per traveler and you’ll not only save money refilling, but reduce waste as well. This jug, filled generously with ice and water from home stayed cold from 6:30am on Day 1 until we finished it the evening of Day 2. We filled up or topped off our individual bottles for every meal, as well as before check in to get us through one night at a hotel without having to buy bottled water.
Make use of the frunk
While we’re talking about packing, go ahead and make use of the frunk. Our S85 has the larger variety, so we were able to put a small, empty duffel bag in there to store clothes as they had become dirty and thus lessen the load carried in our suit cases each day. We also had plenty of room for a cooler full of booze. More on that later. A few days into the trip, I also realized that the empty “microwave” space on rear wheel drive cars holds several pairs of shoes neatly in place.
BYOB
Okay, so this is a tip to save money on any road trip but hello! Enjoy a cocktail at your destination before or after (or both) going out to dinner. Why double the cost of the meal when buying a bottle at home costs a fraction of what it does at a restaurant.
Immerse yourself
This is another tip applicable to any means of transportation but check out websites like AirBnB or HomeAway to find digs right in the midst of your destination. Depending on our trip, you can make use of the ever-growing network of Superchargers and not even have to think about destination charging. We used exactly zero destination chargers on this trip.
Downtown Chicago Tesla Store [Street View]
Stop at more chargers for shorter periods of time
Some people would rather take the long way home and keep moving than take the most direct highway and sit in traffic. Moving just feels better. The same logic applies here. If your route gives you the option to skip chargers, consider not doing so. Consider stopping at every charger along your route, for a shorter amount of time at each stop to minimize sitting and waiting. In addition to being fun to “collect” Supercharger visits, this speaks to the aforementioned hydration peril. Charge rates are slower at the high and low ends of the battery anyway, so this may save time. It also speaks to one of the best parts of choosing to road trip over flying. That is…
See things along the way
I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago. It was the last of the top 5 (by population) cities in the US I hadn’t been to. I always assumed I’d fly there. If I had, I would not have had the great pleasure of seeing Touchdown Jesus and the gold dome at the University of Notre Dame. It was only a few miles away from a charger and well worth a short detour. The same goes for The Big House, the University of Michigan’s football stadium. That one was right along the way to eating lunch in Ann Arbor, a town I had wanted to see but probably would have never visited on its own.
Meet people along the way
Much in the same way that some of this trip’s best memories were stopping near or on the way to chargers, a great highlight was meeting a fellow owner at a charger. On purpose. If you use Twitter, Facebook, any Tesla forums, Reddit or other virtual communities, mention your travels to other users. You may be invited to meet up at one of your charge stops and be blessed with good company. Actually, there may be good company at any charge stop so after your visited your 100th restroom, say hello to fellow owners. One might just be the reason that particular location exists. (I’m talking to you Meijer logistics guy!)
Plan a multi-destination trip
Since you’re driving anyway, and your Tesla can fit lots of luggage, make it a multi-destination trip. Check out the Supercharger maps and trip planning tools then draw a line from home to an intended destination. See which other places are accessible. Make a big, grand loop. While I don’t recommend trying to experience Florence, Rome and Venice in 3 just days total – speaking from experience – you can certainly enjoy many small American cities or national parks in just one day.
Plan ahead for charging
Even if it’s informal, jot down the chargers you plan to hit. Tesla’s trip planning software may or may not take you the way you wish to go. And it may skip chargers. A little planning ahead and looking at a map will give you a better sense of your travel time, intended chargers to hit and potential sightseeing detours.
Share driving responsibilities
This is a biggie. If there is more than one healthy, licensed driver in the vehicle, give up the fob! I’ll never understand why some people insist on being the primary drivers in a family, but now’s not the time. At every charge stop switch. You’ll both feel more relaxed physically and mentally. For all of you couples out there, you already know that vacationing together can be stressful. Why not stack the deck in favor of taking some of the fatigue and stress of the equation? You’re getting out to plug in, stretch, use the facilities and possibly eat. When you get back in, pick another seat. Simple as that.
Okay so this is a child’s car… but I had no pictures of us driving
Document
Tesla owners make one heck of a great community, and are a wealth of knowledge. Download Teslarati’s app (iOS | Android) and see what others are recommending at each charge location. You may find useful information such as discounted restaurants, or be able to add your own tips to share with others. It’s also great to be able to share your stats later. Below you will see the final stats for my trip:
- Days: 8
- Distance: 2,143 miles
- Superchargers visited: 21
- Destination cities (sleep over): 5 (Pittsburg, Chicago, Kenosha, Detroit, Toronto)
- Destination cities/towns (non-sleeping): 3 (South Bend, Ann Arbor, Wilkes-Barre)
- Average energy use: 289 Wh/mi
- Level of enjoyment: Where can we go next?
Elon Musk
The FCC just said ‘No’ to SpaceX for now
SpaceX is fighting the FCC for spectrum that could put satellites inside every smartphone.
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities.
The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building toward this through its Starlink Mobile service, formerly called Direct-to-Cell, in partnership with T-Mobile. The service officially launched on July 23, 2025, starting with messaging and expanding to broadband data in October of that year.
T-Mobile Starlink Pricing Announced – Early Adopters Get Exclusive Discount
It’s worth noting that SpaceX is not alone in this race. AT&T and Verizon have their own satellite texting deals with AST SpaceMobile, while Verizon separately offers free satellite texting through Skylo on newer phones.
The regulatory foundation for all of this dates to March 14, 2024, when the FCC adopted the world’s first framework for what it called Supplemental Coverage from Space, allowing satellite operators to lease spectrum from terrestrial carriers and fill gaps in their coverage. On November 26, 2024, the FCC granted SpaceX the first-ever authorization under that framework, approving its partnership with T-Mobile to provide service in specific frequency bands. SpaceX then went further, completing a roughly $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, which gave it the ability to negotiate with global carriers more independently.
Starlink’s EchoStar spectrum deal could bring 5G coverage anywhere
This recent ruling by the FCC blocked SpaceX from going further, protecting incumbent spectrum holders like Globalstar and Iridium. But the market momentum is already in motion. As Teslarati reported, SpaceX is targeting peak speeds of 150 Mbps per user for its next generation Direct-to-Cell service, compared to roughly 4 Mbps today, which would bring satellite connectivity close to standard carrier performance.
With a reported IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation on the horizon, each spectrum fight, carrier deal, and regulatory win or loss now carries weight beyond just connectivity. SpaceX is quietly becoming the infrastructure layer underneath the phones of millions of people, and the FCC’s next move will help determine how much further that reach extends.
FCC Satellite Rule Makings can be found here.
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
Elon Musk
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Tesla’s Optimus factory in Texas targets 10 million robots yearly, with 5.2 million square feet under construction.
Tesla’s Q1 2026 Update Letter, released today, confirms that first generation Optimus production lines are now well underway at its Fremont, California factory, with a pilot line targeting one million robots per year to start. Of bigger note is a shared aerial image of a large piece of land adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, that Tesla has prominently labeled “Optimus factory site preparation.”
Permit documents show Tesla is seeking to add over 5.2 million square feet of new building space to the Giga Texas North Campus by the end of 2026, at an estimated construction investment of $5 billion to $10 billion. The longer term production target for that facility is 10 million Optimus units per year. Giga Texas already sits on 2,500 acres with over 10 million square feet of existing factory floor, and the North Campus expansion is being built to support multiple projects, including the dedicated Optimus factory, the Terafab chip fabrication facility (a joint Tesla/SpaceX/xAI venture), a Cybercab test track, road infrastructure, and supporting facilities.
Credit: TESLA
Texas makes strategic sense beyond the existing infrastructure. The state’s tax structure, lower labor costs relative to California, and the proximity to Tesla’s AI training cluster Cortex 1 and 2, both located at Giga Texas and now totaling over 230,000 H100 equivalent GPUs, means the Optimus software stack and the factory producing the hardware will share the same campus. Tesla’s Q1 report also confirmed completion of the AI5 chip tape out in April, the inference processor designed specifically to power Optimus units in the field.
As Teslarati reported, the Texas facility is intended to house Optimus V4 production at full scale. Musk told the World Economic Forum in January that Tesla plans to sell Optimus to the public by end of 2027 at a price between $20,000 and $30,000, stating, “I think everyone on earth is going to have one and want one.” He has previously pegged long term demand for general purpose humanoid robots at over 20 billion units globally, citing both consumer and industrial use cases.
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