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Porsche will install 500 fast chargers in USA ahead of Mission E rollout
Porsche Cars North America has announced that it will be building a network of 500 fast chargers in the United States ahead of the upcoming all-electric Mission E rollout in 2019.
Porsche’s Mission E sedan, an electric car comparable to the Tesla Model S, is expected to reach American dealerships sometime next year, followed by the release of the Mission E Cross Turismo in 2020. Apart from these two vehicles, the German legacy carmaker is also considering the electrification of some of its most iconic brands, such as the Macan, Panamera, and the Cayenne.
In a statement to Automotive News, Porsche Cars of North America CEO Klaus Zellmer stated that the 800-volt fast chargers are designed to address the needs of Mission E owners in the region. According to the CEO, the fast charging network will aid in alleviating any range anxiety that owners of the all-electric Porsches might feel when traveling over long distances.
“If you want to buy that car, you want to know what happens if I go skiing and go further than 300 miles. What do I do? So we need to have answers for that,” Zellmer said.
Zellmer noted further that there’s a good chance that the fast chargers will only be used by Mission E owners who travel beyond the vehicle’s 301-mile range. According to the executive, around 80-90% of Mission E owners will likely charge their cars at home or at while at work.
If there is one thing that Zellmer is certain of, however, it is that the 500 fast chargers across the United States will not be free of charge, unlike Tesla’s Supercharger network, which is free to use for owners of the Model S and Model X. The Porsche Cars North America executive further stated that there would be several payment options for Mission E owners, though nothing is finalized yet at this time.
“We are pretty certain that it’s not free of charge. It’s too early to talk about how exactly that payment process for customers will work. There are various opportunities. You could buy a package all included for the car. It could be a membership card that you use. We’re not quite there yet,” the executive said.
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- A concept of the IONITY charging network.
Zellmer also told the publication that Porsche dealers in the United States could opt to build free fast-charging stations for their customers as a means to draw more traffic. The charging time for the vehicle, after all, could be a window of opportunity to engage with customers in dealership offerings. Zellmer, however, noted that dealerships who are interested in this option would have to invest in the construction of the charging stations.
“Dealership investment is not yet finalized, but it’s not a minor cost. It certainly is six-digit numbers that our dealers will have to take,” he said.
Apart from its fast-charging network in the United States, Porsche is also taking part in the construction of the Tesla Supercharger-rivalling IONITY network in Europe. Created by the Volkswagen Group, BMW Group, Daimler AG, and the Ford Motor Company, IONITY exceeds Tesla’s 120 kW Superchargers with its estimated 350 kW output, which is expected to give the Mission E up to 248 miles of range in as little as 15 minutes.
Just like the American fast chargers, using the IONITY network will not be free of charge. According to Porsche’s deputy chairman of the executive board Lutz Meschke, the rates for the upcoming ultra-fast charging network will be comparable to the current prices of gasoline.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.
The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.
next month or so. the next tech to merge on the v15 plan will enable it.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 4, 2026
That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.
Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.
Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.
By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.
Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.
Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.
If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.
That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.
Tesla is beginning to roll out Full Self-Driving Supervised v14.3.9 with a new active safety layer that can take control even when the driver is operating the car manually.
Tesla AI said the software can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when an imminent collision is detected and Automatic Emergency Braking may not be enough. It may also engage if the system detects heavy distraction or an accidental FSD disengagement.
FSD Supervised v14.3.9 starting to roll out shortly
This release includes a new active safety feature set: FSD Supervised can now activate on your behalf when an imminent collision is detected and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) may not be enough.
It may also engage if we…
— Tesla AI (@Tesla_AI) September 4, 2026
The capability is essentially Automatic Collision Evasion. However, unlike conventional AEB, which mainly applies the brakes in a straight line, this feature can use steering, braking, and acceleration together if the car calculates that stopping alone will not prevent impact and a safer path exists. The system may change lanes or move toward a shoulder when conditions allow, then continue driving after the immediate threat is handled rather than simply coming to a stop.
The intervention is meant as a last-resort safety net, not a replacement for attentive driving.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 early review: FSD saved me from an accident
Tesla’s own description still frames FSD as supervised assistance. Secondary reports on internal release notes say the feature can fire while the car is being driven manually if cabin-camera monitoring suggests the driver is not sufficiently attentive, such as reaching toward the back seat, or if FSD appears to have been turned off unintentionally.
After the emergency maneuver, the car is expected to alert the driver and request a return to manual control.
The safety case is straightforward. Many collisions happen in the last second because a driver is looking away, fumbles a control, or faces an obstacle that braking cannot fully solve. A system that can both recognize that AEB is insufficient and execute a coordinated evasive path can reduce those remaining high-severity events.
Re-engaging after accidental disengagement also addresses a practical failure mode: a small steering nudge that drops FSD at the worst moment. The advantage is a background safety net that uses the same vision stack already running in v14, instead of leaving the car solely to emergency braking once the driver is no longer in command.
The feature still depends on FSD being enabled and, according to reports, an active FSD purchase or subscription. It does not make the vehicle unsupervised. Drivers remain responsible, and Tesla has not published how often the system is expected to intervene or how it will handle false positives.
If the rollout is conservative and the false-alarm rate stays low, the update is a meaningful step: FSD is no longer only a feature the driver turns on. In the rare moments when disaster is already forming, it can step in.
Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone
Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when
