News
Tesla opens Erie Supercharger connecting west PA with NY
After years of not-so-quiet desperation, the “missing link” Supercharger in Erie, PA has finally powered up! The location is a vital link for Tesla owners going multiple directions and one that has been near the top of regional owners’ requests.
While you might not think of Erie as a transportation hub, it quickly became a desirable charging stop as the Supercharger network has been built out, much like railroad stations and crossroads have historically become vital only after their peripheral arteries grew.
Emails to and from Tesla suggesting locations had always centered around the busy Peach Street commercial district. Indications were strong that Tesla had found a site long ago only to have it fall through for unknown reasons– a story that would seem to mirror the same timetable and complications that long plagued the Harrisburg, PA Supercharger.
The one-two punch of having two strategically located Pennsylvania charging sites fall through must have hit the team hard after the relative ease of building Somerset and Cranberry locations near Pittsburgh. Harrisburg was another long-bemoaned missing link that made travel across the state problematic at best. Eventually, a welcoming property was found and construction in Harrisburg and Erie have been nearly simultaneous, with Harrisburg coming online just a few weeks earlier.
With Erie now powered up, the hosting businesses in Erie are hoping to attract some new guests. My own observations from frequent travels up and down I-79/90 would suggest they’re going to be pleasantly surprised. Ontario license plates make semi-annual appearances in large numbers as the “Snowbirds” transit western Pennsylvania. They’re also common sights around Pittsburgh year-round, with a good majority of them coming from Toronto.
The largest city in Ontario is its provincial capital, Toronto– indeed, it might surprise many to find out that Toronto has long been the largest city in Canada, more than double the size of Vancouver. It also barely nudges Chicago out of the top four on the continent, with only Mexico City, New York City and Los Angeles claiming more residents. So when the city of Toronto goes on vacation… a good many of them wind up in western Pennsylvania.
For Tesla owners in Ontario, the Erie Supercharger is a reasonable half-day’s drive away. Straight drive-time is about 4 hours, but add in border crossings, charging stops and some meals and those driving from Canada will find the proximity of the Erie hotels to be an ideal overnight rest– regardless of which way they’re going. It’s also an ideal overnight from Washington, DC (among others) and a more ambitious day away from Chicago or Boston. The “jump” from Pittsburgh/Cleveland to Buffalo is history!
More importantly, the addition of Erie makes these trips less butt-clenching. Hyper-miling the stretch from Ohio or Pittsburgh to Buffalo, New York, was always doable in warm weather with careful planning and discipline. Winter brings brutally cold weather from across Lake Erie and strong headwinds (particularly for south/west bound traffic), often laden with snow and ice. With that comes a dramatically shortened range and the trip becomes very questionable in even an 85/90 kWh Tesla. Several drivers have found themselves limping through bad weather conditions with cabin heat exchanged for heart-pounding images of impending doom. Erie makes these worries all go away and four-season travel around the lake should be no less difficult than in a gas-powered car… and certainly much more pleasurable!
If you have destination charging as an option, the Erie Supercharger also partially plugs a large hole in rural New York and Pennsylvania. With a modest 200 mile (as the crow flies) radius centered on the charger you could hypothetically now reach deep into the less populous parts of both states to enjoy their many parks. Or… admittedly, you could drive into the middle of Lake Erie and have range enough to make it back (assuming you’ve first activated submarine mode).
The Hilton Garden Inn, which hosts the Supercharger, is part of a larger facility called the Ambassador Banquet and Conference Center, which includes a Courtyard by Marriott and the Safari Grille. The entire facility is ideal for any road-weary snow birds making their seasonal migration or wedding parties/business meetings full of Tesla owners.
Within easy walking distance of the Supercharger there a lots of food options. A Cracker Barrel beckons for those needing a longer charge, while an Applebee’s and Burger King split the medium and short charging crowd. If you’re willing to brave the pedestrian lights on Peach Street, you can also easily walk to our usual stops, Quaker Steak and Lube. Widen your search zone a little more and the world is your oyster: Steak n’ Shake, Golden Corral, Krispy Kreme, Texas Roadhouse, Eat n’ Park– they’re all accessible by sidewalk. Or you can drive to many more within a mile radius, like our other frequent stop: Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que.
Other nearby shopping opportunities and amusements are nearly endless. All the big box store companies are represented as well as a movie theater and a family-oriented water park called Splash Lagoon, which is owned by the same parent company as the Hilton Garden Inn.
One of the initial unknowns was how Tesla would lay out the chargers themselves. I’d speculated that given the proximity to campgrounds and the lake that Tesla might make the slots pull-through to allow Model X’s with trailers an easier charge.
Turns out that was wrong, but there is an advantage to the way Tesla has situated these chargers versus most other locations. They ran a curbed peninsula out into the parking lot between two rows of pre-existing parking spots, which effectively gives access to the chargers from both sides. I’m not a math expert, but to me that at least halves the chances of any given charger being blocked by a gas car.
By powering up the Erie Supercharger, Tesla has essentially completed two major routes that touch all four compass points. With the elimination of cold weather as a range concern, Tesla tourists can now whoosh around the northeast with relative ease… with two regional holes yet to fill (and hopefully next): I-80 in Pennsylvania and I-86 in upstate New York.
Maps courtesy of Supercharge.info
Please note: We are not specifically authorized, sponsored by, or otherwise directly associated with Tesla Motors and make no claims to be so.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Tesla confirms its first official Cybercab fleet number as Austin scales fast and Dallas looms.
Tesla says more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, the first time the company has put an official number on its active Cybercab fleet. The figure came from the Robotaxi account on X on Saturday, which wrote that one month after launch the service had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days.”
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, quoted the post with a line that carried the bigger news. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote. It is the first time Tesla has named the next city for public Cybercab rides.
One month after launch, we’ve scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days https://t.co/EagJy2JAsm
— Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 10, 2026
Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the public in Austin on September 4, as Teslarati reported, a day after an invite only launch event. The ramp since then has been steep. Our September 28 report had the fleet at well over 100 units after availability jumped from 58 to 125 in a single week. On Thursday, Tesla added 150 Cybercabs to the Texas automated vehicle registry, lifting its registered count to 319 from 169. The first seven appeared on the registry on August 31.
RobotaxiTracker, a community site that counts vehicles from sightings and state records, listed 275 vehicles in unsupervised service in Austin on Saturday, 105 of them Cybercabs, which is well below Tesla’s figure. Tracker counts can lag official numbers, though Sawyer Merritt noted that Cybercab wait times in Austin stayed short on Saturday evening even with more than 2,000 fans in town for X Takeover.
Regulators are watching the rollout. NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards, and sworn answers are due October 30. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, which gives the company a natural venue to define its fleet numbers and put a date on Dallas.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk roasts India’s billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Starlink fight heats up
Elon Musk sarcastically calls Mukesh Ambani ‘Prime Minister’ as the Starlink India standoff escalates again.
Elon Musk escalated his public fight over Starlink’s launch in India on Friday, addressing Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani as “Prime Minister Ambani” in a sarcastic post on X. “Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India,” Musk wrote, before accusing Ambani of “monopolistic exploitation” and asking whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete.” In follow up posts, he said Starlink has proven essential during natural disasters and would help parts of India with no internet access.
The post came two days into a fight that Musk sparked up on Wednesday, when he said Starlink was “being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people.” He called it “a crime against the people of India” and left the names out, adding only, “You can guess who they are.” Jio and Airtel together hold more than 80% of India’s telecom market. On Thursday, Musk asked whether Ambani is “the real boss of India” and said Starlink has spent five years complying with “every single law and requirement” of the Indian government.
Dear Prime Minister Ambani,
Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India.
Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?
There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better.
Thank you 🙏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2026
India’s government has pushed back each time. The Ministry of Communications called the suggestion that its framework is unfair or discriminatory “baseless and misconceived.” Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Friday that three companies hold satcom licenses: Starlink, Jio Satellite Communications, and Bharti backed Eutelsat OneWeb. Amazon’s Kuiper, now Amazon Leo, is still going through the process. None can launch until regulators finalize satellite spectrum pricing and the Home Ministry signs off on each company’s security compliance. Scindia said the telecom regulator and the Department of Telecommunications are close to a decision on pricing, The Hindu reported. Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal also said OneWeb is still waiting on approvals.
Starlink received its operator license in 2025 after a three year wait, and the space regulator IN-SPACe granted what industry executives called the last approval needed in July. The holdup since then centers on security, particularly concern that foreign operators could bypass Indian gateways.
Musk and Ambani have been on opposite sides of this before. In late 2024, Ambani argued for auctioning satellite spectrum, which Musk criticized as out of step with the rest of the world, and India chose administrative allocation instead. By March 2025, the two sides had signed a deal to sell Starlink devices in Reliance stores, and Starlink secured its telecom license that June. That partner is now also a competitor. Jio is reportedly weighing a constellation of 1,600 to 1,650 satellites costing an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion, while Akash Ambani has told shareholders Jio plans to lease capacity from global providers to move quickly.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
Elon Musk will join Saturday’s X Takeover at Giga Texas for a live virtual interview.
Elon Musk will join X Takeover at Giga Texas on Saturday for a live virtual interview, according to Sawyer Merritt, who shared the news late Thursday. Musk will not be on stage in Austin. The conversation is set to stream for free on the @teslaownersSV account on X.
Organizers had kept expectations in check. In a September update, Tesla Owners Silicon Valley said Musk had appeared at the event twice before but was not promising a third appearance, even as fans hoped he would walk the Giga Texas grounds in person. A virtual spot matches 2024, when Musk gave a surprise interview of about an hour to the crowd in San Luis Obispo, as Teslarati reported at the time.
Wasn’t expecting this 🫡
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 9, 2026
This year’s edition is a first in several ways. It is the first X Takeover held outside California and the first at a Tesla facility, with tickets selling out in eight days. Tesla provides the venue, but the event is produced independently by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. The main event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, followed by a drone and light show at 9 p.m. Maye Musk is the keynote speaker, Franz von Holzhausen is set for a virtual keynote, and Nicki Minaj is the special guest. Joe Tegtmeyer, whose drone footage Teslarati used to track the Optimus factory steel frame at Giga Texas, is also on the speaker list.
Musk’s interview topics have not been revealed, but the backdrop is busy. Tesla doubled its Cybercab fleet in Austin in late September, and last week Musk explained why Robotaxi hours only moved from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Merritt also reported Thursday that Texas DMV records now show 319 registered Cybercabs, up from 169. NHTSA’s deadline for Tesla’s sworn answers on Cybercab certification is October 30, and Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21.
Fans who cannot make it to Austin can watch the livestream on X. Musk tends to say more in unscripted settings than he does in prepared remarks, which is the reason this one is worth having open on Saturday.
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Elon Musk roasts India’s billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Starlink fight heats up
Elon Musk’s surprise addition to the X Takeover lineup has fans talking
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
