Tesla Space #65: they are torching Superchargers now...

If you’re looking for more from us, become a Tesla Space Insider.

X OF THE WEEK

Keying Teslas has (somehow?) always been a thing. Sentry cameras have been catching it all on video for us, but there’s not much that have been done to tell the people while they do it, that their actions are caught on film.

…until now?

We also got one of the (rare) Tesla specific tweets so I’ll have to share this one too — Elon, on Tesla’s profit growth.

TESLA, GLOBALLY

Protests… and vandalism against Tesla

I get protesting against the CEO of a company — anybody’s right I guess — but why damage the cars that people themselves have bought, the chargers they use for their cars, and put their lives in danger? The only positive outcome of all this is that it makes the Tesla community stronger in the inside.

There have been protests, mostly organized under the name “ #Teslatakedown ”, organized in over 50 Tesla locations across U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Tucson, and Portland, and in European cities such as London, Barcelona, and Lisbon.

Luckily, these mostly seem not to get violent. However, the vandalism against Tesla is getting out of hand as well. A few examples:

• Nine people were arrested at a New York City Tesla showroom on March 1, 2025, after a glass door was shattered. Here’s a post from a guy who had a Model Y test drive scheduled there and eventually had to go through the garage to get to it.

• In an arson attack, a dozen Tesla vehicles were torched outside a dealership near the southern city of Toulouse in France last night.

• On Sunday night, someone also have set the whole Tesla Supercharger station on fire in Littleton, Massachusetts (the image above from this news video).

On this SC station fire, the Tesla Charging team also commented:
“No customers were charging at time of the fire. Posts & wire will be replaced in <48hrs. Critical infrastructure for EV drivers. Arson investigation ongoing.”

Sadly, Supercharging infra seems to increasingly become a target:

Tesla Charging account answered on this one: “Will be removed by tomorrow morning. Our network will stay in first class condition for our customers.” and also “We will press charges for vandalism at Superchargers.”

On guarding the Tesla stores, it looks like Tesla has now hired security patrols on the grounds for the night, in Loveland, Colorado.

On a funnier note, Zack, a Tesla owner went and as a joke, organized a fake “Dump Musk” event on their own website at the city dump. People actually showed up. “They somehow believed the event hosted by Dee Snutz and Rahul Ligma was real 😂😂😂”

Even Elon replied to the story with “😂”.

Also, shoutout to Stephen Kneubuehl, who went and delivered donuts for the Tesla staff that had to endure one of the protests. An interesting picture of his Cybertruck there…

To end this part for the week, here’s a three-hour watch tip: yep you guessed it, another Elon Musk x Joe Rogan dropped. Note, I don’t think there’s talk of Tesla specifically on there, rather on everything else. 

One quote I’d bring in front of you:
Elon Musk: “I'm the same person I was a year ago, nothing has changed. I didn't suddenly become a different human. But if you read the legacy mainstream media their propaganda stream is that I'm a completely different human. Two years ago, I'm a hero of the left. So how can I go from hero to villain at age 53, suddenly.”

Listen tip:

Last week: Lars Moravy went on the Ride the Lightning podcast and we found quite a lot of new information (our notes last week here).

This week: Franz von Holzhausen (Chief Designer) also went on the Ride The Lightning podcast. You can listen the full thing here in ~55 minutes

Also, huge congrats from Tesla Space to Ryan McCaffrey for finishing up his milestone 500th episode! 🥳 

A piece of Tesla history I found:

The year is 2009 and Tesla just produced its 1,000th car. J.B. Straubel and Elon Musk are sitting in the VIN1000, a Roadster, in the center.

I got this image above from VIN1000. com website — some of the story of this Roadster is put up there buy the guy who bought it from a charity auction Tesla put the VIN1000 on.

And we got another piece of Tesla history from Elon:

If you want to hear more of this story — from right in the middle of Model 3 Production Hell — here’s Omead Afshar giving more context on this. Elon replied:

“A very tough time, but now recollected fondly.”

VEHICLES

The above pic is from this beautiful video from Arash Malek on the New Model Y, do check it out here.

Tesla has now started New Model Y deliveries also in the US — and some people have been receiving invitations for a delivery event on March 8th.

The fukl owner’s manual for the new Model Y is also now available online.

The brake system in New Model Y has the freedom to use either electric motor or mechanical brake when you push the brake pedal — and the pedal doesn’t move anymore if you’re on Autopilot. Great explainer video from Tesla here.

By the way, the first Tesla Model Y deliveries began five years ago this month. Since then, the Model Y has generated an estimated $165 billion+ in lifetime revenue and has become the #1 bestselling car in the world, including EV, hybrid, and ICE.

Quick bites:

• Tesla Model S and Model X delivery windows have increased to as much as 4-5 months (up from 4-8 weeks) in Europe for all variants. Is this due to the potential refresh, teased by Lars last week, incoming already?

• Tesla has introduced 0% APR financing for new Model 3 orders in the US.

  Applies to new orders placed on or after March 3rd and to loan terms of 60 months. You get a 0.99% rate on 72 month term loans.

• Tesla has increased inventory discounts in the US for the old Model Y to as much as $7,000 off. Combining this with the federal tax credit could get you a new previous generation Model Y Performance for $37k.

• Tesla is again offering free lifetime Supercharging for people who buy a new Foundation Series Cybertruck from inventory. This offer can be combined with the up-to-$6k inventory discount and the $1k referral discount.

• Turns out it was the billionaire Ben Horowitz who donated the 10 Cybertrucks to the Las Vegas Police Department we wrote about last week.

• Looks like Lady Gaga also drives a Cybertruck.

• The Cybertruck Wind-up Racer ($35) seems to back in stock in the US Tesla Shop as of this writing… a rather rare thing nowadays I’d say.

• Oy… can’t park there mate!

FSD & SOFTWARE

Tesla’s FSD launch in China has really blown up in socials there!

As more people get access and test it, we can report on more videos and opinions on how well Tesla FSD fares in the largest auto market in the world — China. So far, it seems overwhelmingly positive!

• Here’s a video of 50-minute FSD drive in Shenzhen, China, with zero disengagements. Elon comments: “Nice”.

• Elon also reposted a FSD video from China writing “Teslas can even drive themselves on dirt roads with no markings”

• FSD handling this busy intersection in China.

🇦🇺 Elsewhere, the Tesla app in Australia has now changed the name for an upgrade that shows up as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)”, which might hint to a release soon in down under as well.

🇪🇺 For Europe, Elon confirms again they are ready but just waiting: “We are waiting for regulatory approval”

🇺🇸 Here’s an interesting way to look at things: Nearly 10% of US Tesla miles were autonomously driven last quarter.

SUPERCHARGING & ENERGY

Tesla will be piloting virtual queuing for charging in Q2, for the edge cases when there's a wait time. This was quite fitting under the viral video of some owners actually fighting over supercharging…

Also, the average time spent at a Tesla Supercharger has fallen by about 22% since 2017 helped by smarter Trip Planning, a denser network, faster charging, preconditioning, vehicle efficiency improvements, AC ripple current and more.

For true geeks: someone found Tesla’s V4 Cabinet official specs.

For Steak ‘n Shake fans: this went down on X after Elon said their fries taste way better:

MUSKONOMY

SpaceX & Starlink

Starship launch #8, supposed to happen last night, was scrapped, Elon explains: “Too many question marks about this flight and then we were 20 bar low on ground spin start pressure. Best to destack, inspect both stages and try again in a day or two.”

Here’s a video Elon shared of a previous Starship water landing. He says: “We need to perfect ship reentry at extreme temperatures before attempting to catch the ship with the tower arms, like the booster.”

Starlink now has over 5 million customers, having added an average of 6,780 new customers per day in the last 2 months. Elon says: “Trending well”

Ad Astra

we’ve covered Elon’s STEM-focused “school venture” before but we don’t get news on it too often. Here’s something:

SpaceX filed a permit to construct a $20M Ad Astra school in Brownsville, near the Starship launch site.

PS! If you’re hungry for more from us, consider becoming a Tesla Space Insider.