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Why Tesla’s Supercharger Credit Program is a win-win for everyone

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Paid access to Superchargers will likely have an imperceptible impact on most current and new owners. 400 kWh of complimentary charge or approximately 1,000 miles of road trippin’ annually will satisfy most everyday owners. Improper Supercharger etiquette is nearly as bad as ICEing. With the looming onslaught of new Tesla owners, the company had no choice but to establish a workable set of guidelines that will enable the best experience for everyone.

This was an excellent and very diplomatic move by Tesla to help mitigate local Supercharger abuse. It’s really a win-win-win for everyone involved.

  • Current owners will not be affected
  • New owners will still have some free and fair access
  • Tesla will be able to grow and maintain the charging network

Perhaps the most magical aspect of owning a Tesla is the ability to charge at home or work. You don’t have to go out of your way to find a gas station or Supercharger on a regular basis. Everyone’s habits are different, but you really only need Superchargers during an extended road trip.

Remember the numbers that were relentlessly quoted at the onset of modern EV adoption? 95% of American drivers traveled 30 miles or less every day. This is obviously well within any Tesla’s range.

Tesla offers home charging equipment that is, in many cases, unnecessarily fast at 11.5 kW and beyond. A 7.2 kW Level 2 charger can replenish roughly 22 miles of range per hour and would suffice for most owners. Why would anyone go out of their way to abuse a Supercharger, just to get a free charge when you can charge at your home for the evening and slip into your comfy pants ASAP!?

How much is your time worth anyway? Is it really worth it for someone to go out of their way to find a Supercharger, plug-in, wait, and then drive to their next destination? When all you need is to drive from point A to B, and one or both of those points has a plug waiting for you, there is no reason to add a point C.

This shouldn’t deter most new owners from using their Teslas for periodic longer road trips. With the complimentary 400 kWh of Supercharger use, and an expected low-cost rate thereafter,Β most owners will hardly notice the difference. It will still be the best and cheapest fuel alternative.

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I almost want to go on an environmental tangent. A fair amount of owners already have solar installed on their homes. The Tesla solar roof will hopefully become a popular option. Superchargers to-date widely depend on grid energy that comes from the traditional mix of generation methods. Charging at home gives you greater control over your carbon footprint. If you have the option to generate your own power or purchase renewable energy, you have a social and environmental responsibility to charge at home.

Tesla’s move to paid Supercharger use will encourage better management of our resources. You will still get 400 kWh of FREE Supercharger use EVERY YEAR. You’re going to want to use that wisely. It won’t be that difficultΒ for most owners.

I have a passion for all that is clean, green, responsible and logical. Because of this, I am a big Tesla enthusiast and future owner.

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Elon Musk

Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration

Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.

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tesla cybercab with no manual controls showing a movie with two employees inside

Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.

Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.

Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.

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The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.

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Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

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Tesla Cybertruck construction site

Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

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Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

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Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

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This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

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