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Tesla owners in Portugal escape fuel shortage hell due to truck drivers’ strike
Tesla owners in Portugal are thanking the electric car maker since their vehicles are proving immune to the ongoing gas crisis in the country, which resulted from a strike by fuel-truck drivers calling for higher pay and shorter working hours.
The gas shortage in Portugal got notably worse on Wednesday, the second day of the truck drivers’ strike. Hundreds of gasoline stations closed during the day, as evidenced by incredibly long lines of internal combustion vehicles lining up on stations that still had fuel. Authorities declared a national energy crisis as well, ordering truck drivers to resume deliveries to airports, hospitals, and other essential services.
The government has mandated that a “minimal” supply of at least 40% of normal gas levels must be maintained at gas stations in Lisbon and the second city of Porto. With the national energy crisis in effect, emergency vehicles such as ambulances and firetrucks are given priority to access this “minimal” supply of gas. This means that for thousands of motorists, their vehicles are severely fuel-constrained.
Amidst the chaos brought about by the ongoing truck drivers’ strike, owners of Tesla’s electric cars were able to largely avoid feeling the brunt of the fuel crisis. A Tesla Model 3 owner from the area shared a short clip from his drive home, and it showed the electric sedan passing dozens of vehicles forming a long line to a gas station.
If the truck drivers’ strike in Portugal continues, it is not only the private transport sector that will be affected. As noted in a Politico EU report, some motorists are already spending the night just to line up for fuel, and public transport operators in Lisbon and Porto have warned that buses only had a few days’ worth of fuel left. In a statement to the publication, AntĂłnio Medeiros, a truck drivers’ union treasurer, noted that “If we stop for two or three days, we throw Portugal into chaos. We are perfectly aware of that.”
Unfortunately, there are signs that the truck drivers’ strike would continue. A meeting between employers and the truckers’ trade union broke up without an agreement being reached on Tuesday. The strike is also seeing little political support, with Rui Rio, the leader of Portugal’s Social Democratic Party, noting that “I’m not going to attack the government over something that isn’t the government’s responsibility.”
While Tesla owners who charge their vehicles from the grid will likely experience the effects of the truck drivers’ strike if it continues, those whose homes are equipped with solar panels and battery storage units will largely be immune to further fuel shortages in the country. This independence from the grid is something that is key to Elon Musk’s plan for Tesla, which involves zero-emissions vehicles running on solar energy.
The ongoing experience of Tesla owners in Portugal all but highlights the need for the company to ramp the production of its energy business. Tesla has mostly focused on its electric car business in recent years due to the Model 3 ramp, but Musk has noted that 2019 will see Tesla ramping its energy products. Musk emphasized this point in the Model Y unveiling, stating that 2019 will be the “year of the Solar Roof.” A production ramp of the Tesla Powerwall 2 home battery storage unit is expected this year as well.
Elon Musk
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
Elon Musk told investors Semi self-driving should start working by early 2027, per today’s earnings.
During Wednesday’s’ Tesla Q2 earnings call, an analyst asked Elon Musk when Tesla would look at autonomy for the Semi. His answer set a real timeline for the first time, noting that self-driving on the Tesla Semi is expected to start working “around the end of this year or early next year”.
Musk framed the delay as a matter of priority, not capability. Tesla’s self-driving team is currently focused on Model 3, Model Y, and Cybercab, the vehicles that make up the overwhelming majority of Tesla’s fleet. Since Semi trucks on the road remain a small fraction of that total even after the recent Nevada factory ramp, Musk said it made more sense to keep the software team’s attention on what he called “the march of nines of safety” for the higher volume vehicles first. Autonomous Semi development is “taking a bit of a backseat for the next six months or so,” he said, before adding that it “will definitely be working next year and in time for the scale-up to high production of the Tesla Semi.”
Tesla Semi’s official battery capacity leaked by California regulators
The timeline lines up with what’s already been showing up on public roads. In June, a Tesla Semi was spotted in Sunnyvale wearing a full validation rig, the same rooftop sensor array Tesla mounts on vehicles ahead of an FSD milestone.
A second unit was seen near Fremont days later with a matching camera suite and lens washers. Separately, Tesla analyst Nic Cruz Patane posted video this month of the production Semi’s exterior camera array, ten AI4 based units built directly into the truck rather than added later.
Tesla Semi AI4 cameras. The production version has 10 cameras on its exterior.
These trucks are designed to be autonomous. pic.twitter.com/GH3BamxIBQ
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) April 14, 2026
Musk also gave the reason autonomy on the Semi matters in the first place, a persistent shortage of qualified truck drivers. “There is a really serious shortage of truckers,” he said on the call, framing a self-driving Semi as important both for addressing that shortage and for improving safety and comfort for the drivers running the truck today.
The timing also tracks with the Semi’s production reality. Tesla’s Q2 shareholder letter, dropped language promising the Semi would reach volume production this year. Musk pointed to 4680 battery cell output as the near-term constraint on Semi and Cybercab production. A software timeline landing in early 2027 gives Tesla’s autonomy team room to work while the hardware ramp catches up behind it.
It’s worth nothing that this isn’t necessarily a promise the Semi ships driverless next year. Musk’s own language, self-driving “working” by early 2027, describes internal validation catching up to hardware already riding on every production truck, not a public unsupervised rollout.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
