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US official takes zero-Tesla road trip to promote EVs–things get so tricky they ended up ICE-ing a charger
United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm went on a four-day, 600+ mile journey from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Memphis, Tennessee, with a fleet of all-electric vehicles. The official’s entourage was impressive, as it included EVs like the Cadillac Lyriq, the Ford F-150 Lightning, and the Chevy Bolt. There were some combustion-powered cars in the entourage as well, but zero Teslas.
Over the US official’s journey, things would get so challenging that members of Granholm’s advance team resorted to eyebrow-raising tactics to secure fast chargers for the official. At one point, an ICE-ing incident happened, and police got involved. Needless to say, the Secretary of Energy’s EV road trip became a story worth telling — for better or for worse.
The distance itself between Charlotte and Memphis is not that far. At over 600 miles, the distance would likely require a Tesla just one or two stops at a Supercharger station. Granholm is knowledgeable about electric cars too, being one of EVs’ biggest advocates in the government. She also previously owned a Chevy Bolt and now drives a Ford Mustang Mach-E.
As noted by NPR reporter Camila Domonoske, who drives a Chevy Bolt herself, the US Secretary of Energy’s EV road trip was painstakingly mapped out ahead of time to allow for charging. The entourage stopped at hotels with Level 2 chargers and stopped at rapid chargers between cities. Advance teams would even head to fast chargers to make sure that the official and her team of EVs can recharge their batteries quickly.
Now, such a plan would probably be sufficient if the United States is known for having an expansive and reliable fast-charging network. But it’s not. Outside the Supercharger Network, which is privately operated by Tesla, the US’ rapid charging infrastructure leaves much to be desired.
This became evident when Granholm’s team was planning to fast charge at a station in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia. Upon arriving at the site, the official’s advance party realized that one of the station’s four chargers was broken and two were already occupied. With only one rapid charging stall open, an Energy Department staffer tried to ICE the stall to reserve it for the Secretary of Energy, who was on her way to the charging station.
ICE-ing, or the act of blocking an EV charging stall with a combustion-powered car, has been a headache for electric car owners for years. It was then no surprise that when the Energy Department staffer blocked the only free rapid charging spot in the site, EV owners were not pleased. A family that was boxed out of the charging stall was so upset that they called the police — and for good reason too. The day was extremely hot, and they had a baby in the car.
NPR’s Domonoske described the aftermath of the ICE-ing incident. “The sheriff’s office couldn’t do anything. It’s not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge,” she wrote.
As noted by Domonoske, outside of Tesla’s Supercharger Network, long road trips in the United States are still an issue. Fortunately, Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) is being adopted by an increasing number of automakers and charging companies, so it won’t be long before other electric cars can take advantage of a benefit that’s long been available to Tesla owners.
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Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.
Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.
🚨 Tesla is releasing v14 Lite for AI3 owners who are in early-access
This will give AI3 cars the ability to experience new FSD features like parking preferences. https://t.co/pp6Q5FOKoz pic.twitter.com/tqexMB8SVy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 29, 2026
It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:
- Start Self-Driving from Park
- Arrival and Parking Options
- Speed Profiles
The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.
Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.
Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
