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[UPDATE] Tesla Model S Struck By Lightning While Charging
A Model S disabled by lightning while charging must wait at least one day for Tesla technicians to figure out what went wrong and restore it to service.
UPDATED June 6
It’s been a week since Sarah Day’s Model S got struck by lightning while she was at a SuperCharger facility. So far, she reports Tesla really has no idea what happened to her car, but the technicians at the local Tesla Service Center have been kept busy trying to repair it.
She understands the battery has been removed and sent off to the factory in California, where Tesla engineers “are almost giddy to get their hands on it,” she says. Apparently this is a first of its kind event and the company is putting every effort into trying to understand what happened. Sarah has been told that there may be an official announcement from Tesla when they get it all figured out.
In the meantime, she says “All eyes are on Columbus.” The incident occurred in Ohio, not Georgia as I originally thought. She has asked to be provided with a full technical analysis of what happened to her car and what it will take to fix it when that information becomes available.
For now, there seems to be no correlation between the lightning strike and the fact that her car was charging at the time. It seems Sarah was just unlucky that the lightning came so close. It may be cool to be the center of attention at Tesla headquarters for a little while, but I think by now she would prefer to have her car back so she can get on with her life.
Original post
A Model S struck by lightning while charging will have to wait at least one day for Tesla technicians to bring it back to life and figure out what happened. Sarah Day was charging her Tesla Model S at a Supercharger location near Columbus, Georgia [Edit: The location of the event occurred at Columbus, OH and not Columbus, GA as originally published] on Sunday morning when a lightning bolt hit very close by. Her first indication that something was wrong came when her BlackVue dash cam lost power. Here’s how she describes what happened next:
“I heard the crash, and just a second or two after about 9 errors popped up on the dashboard. Some of them were low charge warnings, saying it would disable some functions. Others were on how the car needs to be serviced. I was also getting that the car can’t be charged, and that the 12 volt battery is low.
“After the storm died down I got out of the car. The charging port wasn’t lit up, and when I tried to remove the cable it wouldn’t come out. I still had most of the functions in the car, including the touchscreen. The other car that was charging just a couple stalls down from me was completely fine and drove away, though I didn’t get to talk to that owner afterwards.”
Sarah called Tesla but had trouble getting through due to high call volume. The company agreed to send a tow truck, but before it got there, the 12 volt battery failed and the touchscreen shut down. When the tow driver arrived, he attempted to charge up the battery but it took two attempts before the touchscreen came back to life. Even then, the charging cable still would not disconnect from the car. Sarah couldn’t get the sunroof to close, either.
Since the car couldn’t be towed with the charging cable connected, Sarah had to leave her car at the Supercharger station with the sunroof partially open. There was nothing more she could do until the local Tesla service station opened for business on Monday morning.
Although Sarah wasn’t happy about her car being disabled, she can’t say enough good things about Tesla service and support people who took her phone calls.
“Tesla customer service was amazing. They were very responsive, and offered to rent me a car from enterprise so I could come home. I said I would rather stay with the car for a couple days to see how it all played out. I am from Atlanta and I was visiting a friend in Columbus, and I didn’t want to be that far away from the car in case of any issues.
“They offered to put me up in a hotel for a night, and also to get me a taxi or Uber ride. I decided I’d just stay with my friend, but they sent the Uber driver over for me. Also, the service center in Marietta, GA has been in contact with me to see how things are going. I know them pretty well, as well as one of the technicians. They have been incredibly helpful and supportive, though they can’t really do anything from there.”
The local Tesla service center will send a technician Monday morning to get the charging cable disconnected and bring the car in to be checked over. Sarah was told that each Supercharger has multiple relays and sensors to protect the cars from surges. At this point, she has no explanation for why her car was disabled, but expects a full report on Monday. She has complete confidence in Tesla service personal to identify the problem and get her car functioning properly again.
“They usually are pretty thorough with their descriptions of what went wrong. I’m hoping that it’s something simple. The technician in Marietta says the car may have sensed the large external voltage spike and disconnected everything as a safety precaution, but I don’t know if that would cause the charging port to malfunction.”
Thanks to Sarah Day for sharing with us details of her experience while she was in the middle of being stranded far from home. We will update this report when more information becomes available.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
SpaceX joins the Golden Dome software group, deepening its role in America’s most expensive defense program.
SpaceX has joined a nine-company group developing the core operating software for the Golden Dome, America’s next-generation missile defense system. According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX is focused on integrating satellite communications for military operations and is working alongside eight other defense and artificial intelligence companies, including Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, and Aalyria Technologies, to build software connecting missile defense capabilities.
The Golden Dome concept dates back to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Armed Forces to construct the system before the end of his term. The system is planned to employ a constellation of thousands of satellites equipped with interceptors, with data centers in space providing automated control through an AI network.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome initiative, has described the software layer as a “glue layer” that would enable officers to manage and control radars, sensors, and missile batteries across services. The consortium is aiming to test the platform this summer.
Trump selected a design in May 2025 with a $175 billion price tag, expected to be operational by the end of his term in 2029, though the Congressional Budget Office projected the cost could reach $831 billion over two decades.
The Golden Dome role is only the latest in a string of military wins for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million task order on April 1, 2026 to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, covering two Falcon 9 launches beginning in Q3 2027. That came on top of more than $22 billion in government contracts held by SpaceX as of 2024, per CEO Gwynne Shotwell, spanning NASA resupply missions, classified intelligence satellites through its Starshield program, and military broadband.
The accumulation of defense contracts, now including a seat at the table on the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history, positions SpaceX as the dominant infrastructure provider for American national security in space. With a SpaceX IPO still on the horizon, each new contract adds weight to what is already one of the most consequential companies in aerospace history, raising real questions about how much of America’s defense architecture will depend on a single private operator before it ever trades publicly.
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Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
