Lifestyle
Tesla drivers add to Supercharging with ChargePoint’s EV charging network
I love California in many more ways than one. Show me a land that seemingly basks in eternal sunshine and is home to arguably one of the most iconic automotive brands in history, Tesla, and I’ll tell you that any Model S owner like myself would be hard-pressed to imagine the Golden State as anything less than a basket of rainbows and unicorns. Except, I don’t live there. And the thought of possibly having to wait in long lines to charge my Tesla frightens me.
I’m a Philly Gal who’s grown used to my electric car lifestyle over the years, and in a region where finding a charging station was once akin to playing a game of Where’s Waldo. We don’t have Tesla Superchargers in every town like our left coast friends (unicorn world). Not to mention that it took a long while before Tesla installed one of their Supercharger stations along the east side of Pennsylvania where I would frequent.
However, Tesla has done a phenomenal job of making long distance and cross-country travel possible with its ever-expanding Supercharger network. Still, I found solace in being able to plug my Model S into a Level 2 charger from time to time, especially during my local routines like going to the market or dining out in the city. And it’s for those reasons that I turned my attention to California-based ChargePoint, the world’s largest electric vehicle charging network, to highlight reasons why Tesla owners might want to extend their charging options beyond Superchargers.
Teslarati’s Interactive Map includes over 42,000 ChargePoint chargers
I asked our development team if we can somehow include ChargePoint chargers into our Teslarati mobile app for iOS and Android, as it could bring value to the incoming Model 3 crowd that won’t have free Supercharger access, but more importantly help advance the adoption of electric vehicles around the world. Furthermore, Tesla owners that have the CHAdeMO adapter will be able to locate their nearest ChargePoint DC Fast Charger through our app and initiate a charge that would replenish roughly 200 miles (322 kilometers) of range per hour. I’m happy to report that ChargePoint was kind enough to let us integrate their charging locations into Teslarati’s app, and explained the reasons as such:
“ChargePoint’s mission is to help every driver get behind the wheel of an electric vehicle. We are committed to electric mobility and are eager to partner with progressive organizations like Teslarati to make it easier for EV drivers to charge up, and ultimately, help advance the adoption of electric vehicles around the world. We are excited to work with Teslarati to offer even more choice for drivers as more Teslas hit the road.”
Life beyond Superchargers
Because our mobile app now features integration with ChargePoint’s public charging stations, we encourage Tesla drivers, current and future, to feel unbounded by the types of all-electric journeys they can make in their vehicles. Gather information about those locations; check-in and share your favorite recommendations, like the tens of thousands have done across their Supercharger travels, and further the adoption of electric mobility.
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Teslarati App available for iOS and Android
As convenient as Tesla’s Superchargers are, the chargers are generally located along major freeways and meant for long distance travel only. Level 2 chargers on the other hand are great for topping off and arguably easier to use for local charging.
I recall a plan I had to utilize nothing but Tesla Superchargers on a recent road trip, only to be pleasantly surprised when we saw a ChargePoint station at our destination. This wasn’t at a fancy hotel or winery like where some of Tesla’s destination chargers are located, but at a nearby strip mall next to where we were staying. Plugging into the Level 2 charger allowed us to charge up overnight and skip the first planned Supercharger on our way out, which would have required us to drive into a traffic congested area that’s off of a major highway.
Having the option to charge at a typical 6.6 kW Level 2 speed at home is the ultimate in convenience. But not everyone has the option. This is where work place Level 2 charging comes into play. Be it your actual employer or some nearby business, grabbing a few hours of charge during your work day can be the difference between owning an EV effortlessly and having to plan for and make dedicated charging trips.
In fact, major cities across the country are starting to get hip to this need. Where I live, having dedicated parking is something only certain neighborhoods enjoy. The coolest of places to live are in or near our center city, which are overwhelmingly full of rowhomes with no garages and a first come, first served street parking system. Most of these folks can only now start considering EV ownership as Level 2 chargers pop up in their neighborhoods, at their shopping destinations and other places they frequent. The city itself is considering how to facilitate and encourage a charging network that results in increased EV ownership. Sustainability and cleaner air are priorities in many places, including my beloved Philadelphia.
Having a mobile app with location services to tell you where nearby chargers can be found is key to convenience. Even more importantly, being able to find a trusted charging provider like ChargePoint, along with crowdsourced comments and photos, and access to charging station statuses will make trip planning even easier.
Happy electric journeys.
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Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
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