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Why are Tesla Superchargers Only for Long-distance Travel?

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Liquid-cooled Tesla Supercharger in Mountain View, CA

Liquid-cooled Tesla Supercharger in Mountain View, CA

Before going on vacation around July 4th holiday, PlugInsights sent a short survey to me with questions about Tesla supercharging procedures and also about recent comments by Elon Musk. About half way into the short survey, it delves into Elon Musk’s supercharging “overuse” comment regarding some daily Tesla commuters relying on the free charging stations in southern California.

My first thought, this again. Musk’s comments made some waves last month but why dredge this issue to the surface in the form of a survey from PlugInsights, a division of RECARGO.

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Is something afoot at Tesla? Why is the company worried enough to conduct a survey about this topic and especially Musk’s comments at the annual shareholders meeting. One question from the survey actually discusses the actual comments by Musk. “Before today, were you aware that Mr. Musk recently made these statements?”

Below are Musk’s comments at the recent annual shareholders meeting held in June:

(paraphrased via the survey)…”that superchargers are meant for free, long-distance travel” and “that drivers who aggressively use the network for local charging may receive an email reminder that it’s ‘cool to do this occasionally but it’s meant for a long-distance thing.’

So why did Elon Musk comment on this relatively small issue? Ashley Vance recent biography on Elon Musk points out that Musk usually doesn’t get involved in PR, unless an issue threatens one of his companies. So how could this threaten Tesla Motors? My speculation is the very real possibility of  battery capacity loss and drastically reduced range with multiple instances of DC fast-charging on a daily basis.

Could these patterns lead to drastically reduced battery packs ranges by year three or four of ownership and possibly lead to Tesla replacing a lot of battery packs, due to their warranty coverage?

My speculation centers around 120 kW of DC energy flowing into the battery pack on a daily basis. Did Tesla test battery packs for multiple, daily DC-charging usage? Maybe not.

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Musk mentioned at the annual shareholder meeting that fast charging was intended for destination traveling and implied it wasn’t for daily use by commuters.

The Idaho National laboratory conducted a study on DC fast-charging and its effects on battery packs some years ago and released findings in 2014. Using 2012 Nissan Leafs, the study compared the effects of different types of charging: level 2 charging (3.3 kW) and DC fast-charging (50 kW).

The study revealed after 40,000 miles of testing that there was little loss of initial capacity and that the DC-fast charging battery pack had only lost 3 percent more than the other Nissan Leaf using level 2 battery charging.

Survey on usage of Tesla Superchargers

Screenshot of PlugInsights survey to Model S owners

However, Tesla Superchargers are dishing out 120 kW DC versus the Idaho study of 50 kW, more than 2x the amount of electricity coming into battery pack. That’s a lot stress on the battery management system to keep heat levels down, plus these car owners are supercharging daily, maybe doing it twice a day?

Many automakers have said that DC fast charging is fine on the battery pack, as long as it’s not done excessively. It seems twice a day could be considered excessive and cause concern for Tesla execs. This could be leading up to some proviso with excessive supercharging and the battery pack warranty, hence the PlugInsights survey on usage and expectations.

What about you, any other thoughts on why this is such an issue for Tesla?

** My other mild theory is Tesla’s rising electricity costs for owners employing supercharging only mode. The results of PlughInsights survey showed that 26% of Model S owners polled have used Tesla Superchargers as a free local alternative to home charging.

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"Grant Gerke wears his Model S on his sleeve and has been writing about Tesla for the last five years on numerous media sites. He has a bias towards plug-in vehicles and also writes about manufacturing software for Automation World magazine in Chicago. Find him at Teslarati

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Elon Musk

The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”

The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.

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The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”

The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.

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Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.

Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.

The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.

The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.

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Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened

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(Credit: The Boring Company)

Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.

The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.

The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel

The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.

Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.

Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.

A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.

The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.

Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.

Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.

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There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.

The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.

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