Tesla Model S
How to use a Tesla Supercharger and what to expect
Today I had to drop off my mother-in-law at Providence airport and I used it as an excuse to make my first Tesla Supercharger visit at the East Greenwich, RI Supercharger. This is currently the northern-most Supercharger on the east coast in the US and located 10 minutes south of Providence Airport (PVD).
I decided not to charge up the night before and left my Model S with 127 miles of range on it. With that amount of range I would have enough to get to the airport, drive to the Supercharger and still drive home if for some reason the Supercharger didn’t work.
Connecting to the Tesla Supercharger
Superchargers appear to have different layouts depending on the location, some you back into while others require you to pull forward – this one is the former. You’ll want to be pretty close to the Supercharger since the cable is relatively short. The charger will always need to be to the left side of the car since that’s where the charge port door is. The rear view camera helps a ton and combined with the parking sensors really allow you to get close without being too close. I love how the parking sensor displays your proximity measurements (in inches for the US).
Once parked and situated you’ll want to pop open the charge port and insert the thick Supercharger cable. I had some difficulties with this at first and encountered a red ring indicating that there was a bad connection.
I pushed the handle in with a bit more force and noticed the red indicator light started to pulsate in green. The center touchscreen read “Preparing for charge” and so I waited. To my surprise the next message popped up and said “unable to charge” so I got out of the car, unplugged the cable and firmly reseated it once more. I waited through the same preparation phase until the car finally began to start charging.
I’ve heard from other owners that Tesla Supercharger connections can be a bit finicky at times so if you don’t succeed at first, try again before moving onto another charging bay.
Supercharger Charging Sequence
Once you’ve successfully made it past the charge preparation sequence, the car will indicate that it’s starting to charge and display the voltage and amperage in which you’re charging at. It takes a few seconds before it ramps up to its peak charge rate which for me read 346 miles/hour at 262A/374V. The peak rate of charge will vary depending on whether its the older 90kW or newer 120kW Superchargers.
Supercharging
I explored the shopping center where the Supercharger station was located. In fact the Supercharger bays at this location was simply eight additional parking spots slotted next to a Walgreens. There’s also an Outback, Ruby Tuesdays, Panera and McDonalds in the area all within walking distance. I decided to go into Panera for a warm drink. It was 40 degrees and approaching May – welcome to New England.
Another thing I noticed at the location is that 5 slots are marked for “Tesla Electric Vehicle” whereas the other 3 are marked for general parking 30 minutes. While I was sitting there waiting for my charge, a Walgreens customer took advantage of the 30 minute parking rule for a brief moment, but otherwise the slots were all open for Tesla owners. New England still ranks pretty low in terms of Tesla ownership per capita.
My charge finished at exactly 50 minutes taking me from 67 miles of rated range to 242 miles of rated range at a 90% state of charge. This equated to 175 miles of charge in 50 minutes. My understanding of the rate of charge can go even higher when you start your charge from near-zero but i’d have a serious case of range anxiety if I did that.
All the displays on the car through the process were great. The one thing I wish they did was give you an estimated time to charge complete. The calculation isn’t simple since they’re varying charge over time, it depends on the state of the Supercharger, if the bay next to you is empty, etc. If it would pop up and say “You’ve got about 45 minutes to do something else” it would have been more helpful. I’m sure some smart people at Tesla can figure out how to do that.
In the end, I got 175 miles of range for free and the experience was great. Now all I need is an excuse to take an extended Supercharger road trip!
Tesla’s two recently-defunct flagship models, the Model S and Model X, are getting a big upgrade, according to the company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy.
Older Hardware 3 Model S and Model X vehicles have been the last major holdouts in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving v14 Lite rollout, and that wait now appears to be ending.
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At Tesla’s Cybercab launch, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy told Ryan McCaffrey that he thought the S and X build “was supposed to go out last week.” Evidently, Elluswamy expects the suite to be rolled out to those HW3 Model S and Model X very soon:
For my @Tesla friends – and specifically Model S & X owners with HW3 who are waiting on FSD v14 Lite – I spoke to @aelluswamy at the Cybercab launch, & when I asked for an ETA on v14 Lite for S/X owners, he said, “Oh, I thought it was supposed to go out last week.”
So: soon! 🙌
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) September 7, 2026
Those cars are not the current Model S and Model X, which already ship with Hardware 4. They are the pre-refresh flagships built around Tesla’s older Autopilot computer, often called HW3 or AI3.
Tesla stopped putting that computer in new vehicles years ago, which is why owners treat these S and X cars as a closed generation. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles on the same computer began receiving v14 Lite in late June 2026 and saw a wider North American expansion in July. South Korea followed as an early international market. The S and X versions of the same software never joined that wave.
v14 Lite is Tesla’s way of squeezing the current v14 driving stack onto hardware that cannot run the full AI 4 model. The company describes the process as distillation: behaviors learned on the newer computer, including reinforcement learning and offline models, are compressed so the older chip and cameras can use them as a guide.
Early descriptions put the distilled network at roughly 15 percent of the original size. The result is still supervised Level 2 driving. Tesla has been clear that HW3 cannot support unsupervised Full Self-Driving or robotaxi operation because of memory and bandwidth limits.
The feature list is what made the wait so frustrating for S and X owners, as plenty of new features are to be shipped with it.
Official notes for the first Lite build, firmware 2026.20.5.1, added parking, unparking, and reversing; arrival options for a parking lot, street, driveway, or curbside; speed profiles that stay available at all times; and start-from-park engagement. Tesla also claimed better handling of merges, forks, pedestrians, traffic lights, and cut-ins, plus fewer false slowdowns and smoother lane centering.
A mid-July follow-on build, 2026.20.6.10, added more of the Hardware 4 interface, including a standalone Self-Driving app and the ability to start a trip from Park without a brake-pedal confirmation.
Elluswamy called that version the one “likely going to wide release.”
That wide release already reached most other HW3 cars in the United States and Canada. International timing still depends on regional validation and regulatory approval. For S and X owners, the remaining work appears to be model-specific validation rather than a new software stack.
There is no official Tesla changelog or build number for those two models yet, only Elluswamy’s offhand timeline. Some HW3 drivers who already have Lite report large gains over v12.6; others have described new indecision or phantom braking. The next test will be whether the same software lands cleanly on the older flagships that have waited the longest.
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
In a move echoing its earlier commitment to open innovation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced recently that the company plans to make the design and software of its Model S and Model X fully open source.
This follows the same approach Tesla took with its original Roadster, releasing all available design, engineering, and diagnostic materials in November 2023 so that “whatever we have, you now have.”
Just as Tesla made the original Roadster design & software open source, we plan to do the same with Model S & X
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 24, 2026
The Model S, introduced in 2012, was Tesla’s first mass-produced vehicle and a groundbreaking luxury electric sedan. It offered impressive range, rapid acceleration, and over-the-air software updates that redefined expectations for electric cars.
The Model X, launched in 2015, built on that foundation as a high-performance electric SUV notable for its distinctive falcon-wing doors, spacious interior, and advanced safety features. Both models served as flagships that helped establish Tesla as a leader in the EV industry and popularized long-range battery-electric vehicles.
Production of the Model S and Model X was wound down earlier in 2026, with manufacturing ending in the second quarter. Tesla redirected the Fremont factory space previously used for these vehicles toward higher-priority projects, including Optimus humanoid robots and the Cybercab autonomous vehicle.
By the time of Musk’s open-source announcement, custom orders had closed and only remaining inventory was available.
Open-sourcing the designs and software offers several clear advantages. Owners of these aging but still capable vehicles gain better access to technical documentation, diagnostic tools, and software resources, making independent repairs and modifications easier and more affordable.
Independent repair shops and third-party specialists can support the large existing fleet without relying solely on Tesla’s service network. Enthusiasts and engineers can study real-world implementations of Tesla’s battery, powertrain, and software systems, potentially accelerating broader industry progress in electric mobility.
The step aligns with Tesla’s 2014 patent pledge and its overall mission to advance sustainable transport by sharing hard-won knowledge rather than locking it behind proprietary walls.
By releasing these materials now that the models have left production, Tesla ensures continued support for its early adopters while freeing internal resources for future technologies. The open-source release of the original Roadster already enabled simulations, community projects, and deeper technical understanding.
Extending that practice to the Model S and Model X should deliver similar benefits on a larger scale, helping keep these influential vehicles relevant and repairable for years to come
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