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Tesla Semi spotted at customer Anheuser-Busch’s facility in St. Louis, MO

[Featured Image Credit: Dan Mueller via Instagram]

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The long-range Tesla Semi that was spotted doing delivery runs between the Fremont factory and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada has been sighted more than 2,000 miles away at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday. The massive electric long-hauler was also seen parked at the St. Charles, MO Supercharger, roughly 24 miles away from the beer giant’s facility, later in the day.

Reports of the Tesla Semi’s visit to the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis started emerging after pictures of the electric truck parked in the facility made their rounds in social media. Baron Rana, a member of the St. Louis Tesla Enthusiasts Facebook Group, shared images of the Tesla Semi parked beside the brewery’s brick walls. Dan Mueller, another Tesla enthusiast in the area, also managed to photograph the electric truck as he was attending a tour of the Anheuser-Busch facility.

The reasons behind the truck’s visit to the beer giant’s St. Louis brewery remains unknown, though it is possible that Tesla is looking into testing the Semi’s high-powered chargers that are being installed in some of its clients’ facilities. As we mentioned in a previous report, Tesla is currently working with some of its biggest Semi buyers such as PepsiCo, UPS, and Anheuser-Busch, to build on-site charging stations for the electric long-haulers.

The chargers, presumably Tesla’s high-powered Megachargers, are set to be installed at key locations frequently visited by fleet operators. This system would enable the Semi to travel from one facility to another without compromising its range. With this in mind, the Anheuser-Busch facility in St. Louis definitely seems to be a site where the beer giant could build a charging stations for the 40 Tesla Semis that the company ordered.

As it turned out, Tuesday was not just a day of Tesla Semi sightings at the Anheuser-Busch St. Louis brewery. A few hours after the St. Louis sighting, one member of the St. Louis Tesla Enthusiasts Facebook Group, Kyle Feller, was able to locate the truck parked at the St. Charles Supercharger, and he was able to get some highly-detailed close-ups of the electric long-hauler. Here are the pictures taken by Feller, who was fortunate enough to capture what could very well be the closest look at the Tesla Semi’s details to date.

As we mentioned in a previous report, the Tesla’s two Semi prototypes were recently sighted at a Supercharger in Rocklin, located near Sacramento, CA. The two electric trucks were extensively photographed and filmed then, with Model S owner Eli Burton of YouTube’s My Tesla Adventure channel tailing the two electric trucks as they headed into I-80 on a westward route towards the Bay Area. As could be seen in the footage that Burton captured, the Semis boast some insane acceleration and torque, allowing the massive vehicles to accelerate nimbly despite pulling trailers behind. 

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo

SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.

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SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.

The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.

The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.

Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.

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Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.

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Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner

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Tesla Model Y L in a field
Credit: Tesla

Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.

Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990

Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.

However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.

Multi-Row Climate Control

Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:

Better Rear Window Visibility

One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.

Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:

PowerShare will be included

Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.

Wireless Charging Pad

There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.

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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit

Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.

Thermal Management Improvements

These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:

  • Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
  • +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
  • 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
  • 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin

Demand

Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with

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  • 1 year of FSD Supervised
  • 1 year of Supercharging
  • 1 year of Premium Connectivity
  • Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.

Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:

The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.

The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.

China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.

The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.

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