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Tesla Superchargers could be coming to a gas station near you
If you are in the business of selling gasoline and diesel fuel, why would you want to install chargers for electric cars, too? Gas stations today live and die on volume turnover geared to the roughly five minutes it takes to fill the tank. They make most of their profit on coffee, cigarettes and snacks that can be dispensed quickly. The electric car revolution may change all that and, once again, Tesla Motors is at the forefront of the change.
Sheetz operates a large chain of gas stations. It has hundreds of retail outlets located in six states, mostly in the mid-Atlantic region. It does nearly $7 billion in business every year. Eight of its stores already have charging stations where EV drivers can recharge their batteries. Sheetz is currently talking to Tesla about adding its charging infrastructure to the Sheetz locations.
“We’ve had discussions with them about putting their chargers in our stores,” confirmed Michael Lorenz, Sheetz’s executive vice president of petroleum supply, in an interview. “We haven’t done anything yet, but we’re continuing those discussions.” He declined to say how many Sheetz locations might be involved.
Tesla declined to comment on the negotiations with Sheetz, but acknowledged in a statement that it is actively courting gas stations, hotels and restaurants in its bid to install high-speed electric chargers across the country.
Sheetz may be ahead of the curve at this time, but the coming electric car revolution is getting bigger in the rear view mirror. Already, marketing experts are recommending that gas stations start thinking about adding chargers to their facilities. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that within six years electric cars will be as affordable as traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. By 2040, roughly 1 in 3 new vehicle sales could be an EV, according to Bloomberg.
Gas stations routinely dig up and replace their fuel tanks. It makes economic sense to bury the conduits that will be needed for the chargers of the future while that work is being done, even if the actual chargers are not installed until later.
As average fuel economy rises and advances in clean transportation technology occur, traditional gas stations will soon face a difficult choice: adapt or die. Federal estimates suggest that by 2035, U.S. drivers could be consuming 20% less gasoline than they do today, says John Eichberger, executive director of the Fuels Institute, founded by the National Association of Convenience Stores.
“Those kiosks that just sell gallons and smokes are going to have to change,” says Eichberger. “They’re going to lose gallons. Plain and simple, no way around it.”
He adds that the typical gas station of the future will likely look completely different from the fast paced “get ’em in, get ’em out” stores of today. He thinks they will be more like restaurants or highway rest stops than convenience stores. Tesla is at the forefront of this paradigm shift in which customers stay longer and spend more. The more gas stations that move in that direction, the better for Tesla.
Tristen Griffith is the president of the Sacramento 49er Travel Plaza, a truck stop that spent the past year researching EV technology. Recently, Griffith made the decision to let a third-party company, NRG Energy, install a set of EV chargers on her commercial property.
“We want to sell gas and diesel, but our future is electric vehicles, and trucks are going to be driverless,” said Griffith. “Times are changing, and we need to keep up with that change as well, if we want to be smart and stay ahead of the game.”
Staying ahead of the game is Tesla’s greatest strength. The question Tesla fans should be asking themselves at this point is exactly what does Tesla have in mind for charging the millions of electric cars it says it will be building in a few short years? Is it thinking about a parallel system to its Supercharger locations? Will it have one system for Tesla owners and another for drivers of other electric cars?
We simply don’t know, and won’t until Tesla decides to let us in on its plans.
Source: Washington Post
News
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.
Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.
Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.
The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.
Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.
The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.
The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.
There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.
The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.
Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Elon Musk
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.
Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”
The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.
Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.
The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.
Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.
The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.
Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.
Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
