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Tesla to Debut Battery Swapping Stations
Tesla will set up automated stations later this year that the electric-car company says can remove a spent battery pack and install a fresh one in less than two minutes.
On a stage Thursday night surrounded by Tesla investors and enthusiasts, CEO Elon Musk showed the robotic system in action on two Model S cars while a camera crew simultaneously filmed a driver filling up an Audi A8 at a gas station. The Audi, which required about 23 gallons of fuel, took roughly four minutes to refuel, or a minute more than the time required to swap the batteries on the two Model S sedans.
While it was hardly a scientific experiment, Musk said it would take 90 seconds from start to finish, and the process – which uses equipment similar to that used at the company’s Fremont, Calif., factory – was barely noticeable aside from watching the car’s suspension rise and fall from the battery’s weight.
Once the driver parked the car over a trap door, automated controls unbolted the battery from the undercarriage, slipped it below the stage floor and bolted in a new battery, all without the driver having to exit the vehicle.
The idea behind the swaps, Tesla said, was to “give people a second choice” to recharge.
“Now they can charge for free or do a battery swap for a cost,” Tesla spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson told MSN Autos.
Drivers will pay between $60 and $80 for a battery swap, or whatever the local equivalent is for 15 gallons of premium gasoline, the company said. Tesla will let Model S owners swap as many times as they want, although it will require them to pay the difference in warranty and age should they swap into a newer battery.
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Tesla did not reveal details, but told MSN Autos it would charge drivers a set amount per kilowatt-hour if they decide to keep the battery indefinitely, depending on how much capacity their original battery has lost. Eventually, when the system is filled with used batteries, owners may be able to receive credits if they use an older pack.
Tesla already has eight Supercharger fast-charging stations that allow Model S owners to recharge their battery pack by up to 80 percent in about 30 minutes, at no cost. The new battery-swap stations will be added to existing fast-charge stations, starting in California later this year along Interstate 5 from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and later along the Boston to Washington, D.C., corridor, Tesla said. No attendants will be required, and the entire system – save for some storage for the 50 new battery packs the company plans to have at each station – will be done underground. No reservations will be needed.
Battery swapping has long been a hot idea in the electric-car industry, although no company has been successful with it. The Israeli company Better Place was one of the first to install large-scale battery-swapping stations, but it went bankrupt last month. Fisker Automotive, another failed company that used to sell the Karma plug-in hybrid, had designed its battery packs to be “hot swappable” in less than 30 minutes, but it is in bankruptcy court searching for a potential buyer.
Europeans have adopted a simpler alternative whereby an electric car’s batteries are leased from the automaker and replaced for a reduced cost at the owner’s discretion. Smart, Renault and Nissan have offered such programs, which lowers the car’s sticker price dramatically but requires the owner to enter a multiyear contract.
Earlier Friday, Nissan said it would offer a battery leasing program for all U.S. Leaf owners by mid-2014 for $100 per month and would, per its warranty, replace the battery if the capacity drops below 70 percent over five years or 60,000 miles.
[Source: MSN Autos]
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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:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
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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:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
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
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
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
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:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
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.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
-People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
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.
Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
