News
Tesla combats Uber, Lyft congestion in New York City with Supercharger Congestion Fees
Tesla is combatting Uber and Lyft congestion at its Superchargers in New York City with Supercharger fees after the ride-sharing services have backed up EV chargers.
This week, it appears the Superchargers are more congested than normal, and it could be due to the influx of Uber and Lyft vehicles at locations in Brooklyn and Queens.
Dear @elonmusk and @Tesla please consider increased demand for the superchargers (240kw) and make the new ones nearby these locations- #Brooklyn #BayRidge #BathBeach #Bensonhurst #DykerHeights #Forthamilton
Please, cooperate with Tesla – @NYCMayorsOffice @nyctaxi @Uber pic.twitter.com/fYmPNr9EOt
— Vako Ormotsadze (@VOrmotsadze) January 12, 2024
This is not a great experience.
We need more supercharger locations in NYC. As a Tesla customer we shouldn’t have to go through this, second time this week. @elonmusk @Tesla @TeslaCharging @WholeMarsBlog @heydave7 @SawyerMerritt @DirtyTesLa @DillonLoomis22 pic.twitter.com/GVybsMdq8w— Tesla Shill (@TeslaShill) January 17, 2024
Tesla has sent this message to drivers in the area, indicating that Active Supercharger Congestion Fees will be applied:
“Idle fees have been replaced by congestion fees at select Superchargers near you. Congestion fees accrue when your Supercharger is busy and your vehicle’s battery is above a certain level. This change helps reduce wait times and ensures that everyone has access to Superchargers when they need it.
Congestion fees apply when:
- Supercharger is busy
- Your vehicle’s charge is above the congestion fee charge level
View congestion fees and charge levels at which they apply on your touchscreen.”
The number of Lyft and Uber vehicles that applied for licenses through the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) was well over 9,000 units last year, and several NYC Councilmembers warned that this could cause congestion.
The TLC eliminated the cap on for-hire drivers as long as the vehicles are electric or handicap accessible, but there are now so many in the city that it is causing issues.
On top of this, there are only so many charging stations in the City, and several are operated by Revel, the ride-sharing service that fought the TLC for more for-hire licenses several years ago.
Tesla Model 3 wins hearts as famed NYC Taxi, picks up where Nissan Leaf couldn’t
As for congestion fees, Tesla launched them last year in an attempt to keep Supercharger lines moving when certain locations are congested.
Code from Tesla hacker green stated that the congestion fees would apply when vehicles are charging over 80 percent.
Potential Solutions
The big issue and core problem is that there are a lot of EV drivers in New York, but the infrastructure just has not gotten to a point where it can routinely handle an influx of cars that need a charge.
Revel has been expanding its network of EV chargers throughout New York City and plans to open more stations this year.
Spokesperson Robert Familiar told us:
“Revel’s public fast-charging Superhubs have seen about four times more public utilization in the last two months, which we see as a direct outcome of the Green Rides initiative. We’re anticipating an even greater uptick as more drivers look to skip long lines and hidden fees by charging at our higher-volume Superhubs.”
The 2018 Green Rides initiative has been great for EV adoption, but it surged demand so much that it generally outpaced infrastructure availability.
Jason Kersten, the Press Secretary of the NYC TLC, told me that there will be growing pains until the City is able to build out the appropriate amount of infrastructure. EVs are obviously a great thing for New York, and we talked in detail about the transitional phase that the City will go through over the next 11 years as it gears up for a 100 percent zero-emissions fleet.
TLC Commissioner David Do believes infrastructure will need to catch up as drivers under the Commission jumped at the opportunity to own EVs last year:
“In October, we gave TLC drivers the option of owning their own EV plates instead of continuing to lease gas-powered vehicles, and many of them jumped at it. They’re now hitting the road, leading the charge towards a cleaner and more sustainable city and sending a very clear message: We need more charging infrastructure. We’re doing everything we can to meet that demand as quickly as possible. That includes the city’s commitment to install 13 fast charging hubs in municipal parking facilities citywide, a new Bronx charging depot, and 30 fast chargers at TLC’s Woodside inspection facility.”
88 percent of the 9,756 applications the TLC received between October 18 and November 13 were from individual drivers, not companies. The TLC has, so far, approved 4,732 and continues to process applications.
The TLC and the City of New York have worked together to increase charging infrastructure moving forward. The efforts have resulted in $15 million in federal funding for a charging depot in the Bronx, 30 fast-chargers at the TLC’s Woodside inspection facility, and 13 municipal parking facilities citywide, among other things.
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Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.