Tesla’s Supercharger network hit a record single-day energy consumption the weekend after Thanksgiving, meaning that more electric vehicle (EV) drivers were able to use the chargers in one day than ever before.
The Supercharging network reached a peak single-day consumption of 12 GWh on Saturday, November 30, as confirmed over the weekend by Max de Zegher, Tesla’s Director of North American Charging, in a post on X. The news came in response to some of de Zegher’s insights on recent price reductions in the Supercharger network, and as the company has been rolling out access to the network to the first non-Tesla brands throughout this year.
Tesla Supercharger network leads U.S. toward 2030 charging goal
Tesla Supercharger pricing updates, buildout ramp, faster charging, non-Tesla EV access
As for Supercharger pricing, de Zegher outlined two goals for Tesla following discussion on X highlighting that prices seem to have dropped in both Europe and the U.S. in recent weeks:
- Price low to accelerate EV adoption, we pass on cost efficiencies
- Be financially sustainable to invest in the network, growing dependable freedom to travel
Credit: Electric_Maik | X
Tesla has been ramping up the production and deployment of its Superchargers over the last several years. The company reached its 60,000th individual Supercharger stall worldwide in October, after surpassing 50,000 stalls just over a year earlier last September. Supercharger deployment also seems to have continued at a steady pace this year, despite layoffs affecting the charging team in April. Tesla later walked back some of the layoffs, even going on to re-hire de Zegher.
Earlier during the month of April, Tesla said that its pre-fabricated Supercharger units now take just four days from production to delivery and installation. Last month, de Zegher reiterated the advantages of pre-fab Superchargers, primarily including that it makes installation more quick, higher-quality, and more affordable, while those savings were being passed onto the drivers.
The never-ending hunt for efficiency matters to accelerate the transition to EVs,” de Zegher wrote in a post on X. “This is what shows up on-site: traditional build with excavations (left), vs pre-assembled Superchargers (right).”
Credit: Max de Zegher | X
In addition to the overall network buildout, Tesla officially announced plans to start rolling out V4 Supercharger cabinets in 2025, after beginning to roll V4 charging stalls throughout much of last year. The upgraded cabinets will give drivers charging at V4 stalls access to the higher charging speeds of up to 500 kW for the Cybertruck (or 1.2 MW for Tesla Semi) offered by V4 Supercharger stalls. Although Tesla hinted at this a few months ago with trials of faster charging speeds at select Superchargers, the news has been highly anticipated for years and will soon become a reality.
Tesla has also been working on improvements to the Supercharger network, including the buildout of more pull-through charging sites for vehicles that are towing, as well as making it easier to filter for these sites on the vehicle’s navigation system. Last month, the company also said it was aiming to make stall availability more accurate than ever, along with increasing long Supercharging cables, modifying stations to avoid blocked stalls from non-Tesla EVs with different charge ports, and pushing manufacturers to follow Tesla’s port locations.
In addition, the improvements come as non-Tesla EV brands including Ford, Rivian, General Motors (GM), Volvo, Polestar, and recently Nissan, can now charge at Supercharging stations in North America using an NACS adapter. Although the added EV brands will increase congestion at charging sites, Tesla’s efforts to implement improvements to existing sites and to continue building out the network will likely be felt by Tesla and non-Tesla EV owners alike—and it should definitely continue to help accelerate EV adoption.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla offers 3 months of free FSD (Supervised), Supercharging for Q4 orders in North America
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and AI Director Ashok Elluswamy celebrated Christmas Eve by sharing personal experiences with Robotaxi vehicles that had no safety monitor or occupant in the driver’s seat. Musk described the system’s “perfect driving” around Austin, while Elluswamy posted video from the back seat, calling it “an amazing experience.”
The executives’ unoccupied tests hint at the rapid progress of Tesla’s unsupervised Robotaxi efforts.
Elon and Ashok’s firsthand Robotaxi insights
Prior to Musk and the Tesla AI Director’s posts, sightings of unmanned Teslas navigating public roads were widely shared on social media. One such vehicle was spotted in Austin, Texas, which Elon Musk acknowleged by stating that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
Based on his Christmas Eve post, Musk seemed to have tested an unmanned Tesla himself. “A Tesla with no safety monitor in the car and me sitting in the passenger seat took me all around Austin on Sunday with perfect driving,” Musk wrote in his post.
Elluswamy responded with a 2-minute video showing himself in the rear of an unmanned Tesla. The video featured the vehicle’s empty front seats, as well as its smooth handling through real-world traffic. He captioned his video with the words, “It’s an amazing experience!”
Towards Unsupervised operations
During an xAI Hackathon earlier this month, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla owed be removing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis in Austin in just three weeks. “Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them. Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks,” he said. Musk echoed similar estimates at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting and the Q3 2025 earnings call.
Considering the insights that were posted Musk and Elluswamy, it does appear that Tesla is working hard towards operating its Robotaxis with no safety monitors. This is quite impressive considering that the service was launched just earlier this year.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
News
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
Elon Musk and Tesla AI Director share insights after empty driver seat Robotaxi rides
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
