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Tesla Truck Unveil: Event details for November 16

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Tesla has begun to send official email invitations to attend its upcoming truck unveiling event, to be held on Thursday, November 16 from the company’s Design Center in Hawthorne, California.

The invitation teases with a new photo of the semi-truck that’s taken from the front three-quarter angle. While we’re not able to see much of the vehicle beyond the large wind deflector that’s mounted above the main cabin and the attached tractor, the silhouette resembles the shape of a presumed Tesla’s Semi that was captured in a recent spy photo.

Details for the Tesla Truck event are as follows:

Date and location

  • Tesla Truck Unveil on Thursday, November 16 at the Jet Center Los Angeles in Hawthorne, CA.
  • Doors open at 7 PM
  • Food and drinks will be served beginning at 7 PM
  • Remarks will begin at approximately 8 PM

Reminders

  • Invitations are non-transferable and IDs will be checked upon arrival
  • The event will be held both indoors and outdoors, we recommend light outerwear in case of cooler weather

Parking and Charging

  • Parking and shuttles will be available in the Lowe’s parking lot, near the intersection of W 120th Street and Wilkie Avenue. There will be no event parking available at the Jet Center.
  • A parking pass will be required to enter the parking lot. Tesla will email attendees a parking pass and an event map prior to the event.
  • Vehicle charging will not be available on site. Due to high traffic at the Los Angeles (Design Center) Supercharger location, please plan for limited charging.
  • The closest Supercharger locations are in Culver City and Redondo Beach.

Accommodations

Please note, guests are responsible for the cost of their travel to and from the event. Reduced rates are available at the following nearby hotels. We recommend booking your room as soon as possible.


Photo credit: Ben Sullins of Teslanomics

Tesla announced in June of 2016 through the company’s second Master Plan that it intended to expand beyond consumer vehicles and into the heavy-duty trucking industry. “We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.” said Tesla.

Recent reports peg the electric hauler to have a battery range between 200 to 300 miles and capable of autonomous ‘platooning’. Musk also revealed earlier in the year that the ‘seriously next level’ truck will take on the heavy duty long-range trucking sector and can be driven like a “sports car”.

“A lot of people don’t think you can do a heavy duty long-range truck that is electric. But, we are confident that this can be done.” said Musk during Tesla’s 2017 Shareholder meeting.

Tesla’s Semi truck program is being led by industry veteran Jerome Guillen, Tesla’s VP of Trucks and Programs. Having previously worked at Daimler and served as General Manager of New Product Development at Freightliner Trucks, Guillen will without doubt apply his extensive background in long-haul trucking to the company’s newest endeavor.

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Gene has been obsessed with cars since before he could legally sit in the front seat. Writer, researcher, unofficial CS support, accountant, native suit guy when needed, and overall stick poker. He approaches every story the way he approaches a road trip: with too much enthusiasm, not enough planning, and a surprisingly good outcome. gene@teslarati.com

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Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads

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Credit: lottherm | TikTok

Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.

Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.

However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.

A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.

@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓

Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.

Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.

Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you

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It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.

Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.

The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.

Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.

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Tesla is building its largest Supercharger on the East Coast in New York City

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tesla store in New York City
Credit: Tesla

Tesla is building its largest East Coast Supercharger in New York City, planning to bring a 64- to 68-stall station to Queens, New York.

It will end up being tied for the largest Supercharger on the East Coast with this number of stalls. The largest on the Eastern Seaboard is located in Halifax, North Carolina, and is also 68 stalls.

The location is also set to be fitted with two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. We’ve seen Tesla implement these types of parking spots at newer locations as EV ownership continues to expand to those who do more than simply drive their cars.

There are plenty of Superchargers in the New York City metro, but they are mostly located in boroughs outside of Manhattan. There are five Superchargers in various neighborhoods of Manhattan, but there are limited plugs; usually only four per location. There are plenty of Destination Chargers in the Big Apple, though.

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Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn have become popular locations for companies to build out charging infrastructure for those who live in the highly populated boroughs. There is simply much more real estate to build effective EV charging stations.

Tesla spends $18M to expand Supercharging in New York City

The Supercharger will be located in Maspeth, Queens, at 48-26 54th Road. Maspeth has I-495 running through it, so this will be a great location for Tesla owners to hop off the highway on their way to Long Island or to Manhattan to charge up before continuing their journey.

Tesla has done a really great job of expanding its charging footprint throughout the past several years, especially by building large-scale projects that cater to areas that have a high volume of traffic and are main routes of travel to major areas. Tesla is making an effort to make charging less stressful and more widely available in these concentrated regions.

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SpaceX just launched a secret payload from California

SpaceX launched a classified Space Force mission from Vandenberg, revealing almost nothing about its payload.

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Space Force officials say the Falcon 9 booster pictured here in SpaceX's rocket factory will have to wait a few months longer for its launch debut. (SpaceX)

SpaceX launched a classified Falcon 9 mission for the U.S. Space Force from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday night, and the government released almost nothing about what was on board. The mission, designated USSF-366, lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E with a window that opened at 9:52 p.m. ET and ran into the early hours of Sunday, according to SpaceX’s own mission page, which described the payload only as classified. SpaceX confirmed the launch on its X account and pointed viewers to a livestream that began roughly ten minutes before liftoff.


The lack of detail did not stop analysts from filling in the blanks. Independent tracking of the rocket’s stage drop zones matched the pattern SpaceX has used on previous Starlink Group 15 missions, according to reporting from Outer Space Today, which pointed to Starshield as the likely payload rather than a one off government satellite. Starshield is SpaceX’s national security product, a version of the Starlink satellite bus built to Pentagon specifications for earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. Unlike consumer Starlink, government agencies do not have to disclose what Starshield satellites are actually doing once they reach orbit.

USSF-366 is the latest entry in a steady flow of classified and semi classified work between SpaceX and the Space Force. The company picked up a $178.5 million task order in April to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, as Teslarati reported at the time, and followed that in July with a $1.6 billion award covering 18 more Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027, also detailed by Teslarati. Add those contracts up and SpaceX’s Pentagon business for 2026 alone tops $8 billion.

SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites

The Falcon 9 that flew Saturday landed back near the launch site, producing the sonic booms that have become routine for residents near Vandenberg. What is less routine is how little the public will likely ever learn about what the rocket carried. SpaceX and the Space Force have not confirmed the Starshield connection, and government satellite programs built on commercial buses rarely get identified beyond a mission number and a general orbit. For a company that live streams almost everything else it does, from Starship test flights to Optimus robot demos, USSF-366 is a reminder that some of SpaceX’s busiest work now happens entirely out of public view.

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