Hilton will add 20,000 Tesla Wall Connector chargers to their hotels
Hilton
Two industry giants have announced collaborations to achieve a seamless electric vehicle experience. First, in a bid to electrify road trips and facilitate easy overnight charging, Hilton will partner with Tesla to deploy an unparalleled number of charging stations across its hotels in North America. On a parallel track, Honda signs onto Tesla's rapidly expanding North American Charging Standard (NACS), promising to streamline the charging ecosystem further.
Hilton & Tesla: Powering Up Hospitality
Launching in early 2024, Hilton plans to modernize the hospitality industry by equipping 2,000 of its hotels across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with a staggering 20,000 Tesla Universal Wall Connectors. This initiative sets Hilton to establish the industry's largest overnight EV charging network, offering at least six chargers at each property to cater to the ballooning community of EV travelers.
Matt Schuyler, Hilton’s Chief Brand Officer, accentuated their commitment to evolving with their guests' needs, offering experiences that echo their daily routines while promising unmatched hospitality. This partnership envisages a transformed North American landscape, teeming with convenient EV chargers to enhance travelers’ experiences and facilitate sustainable choices.
Tesla echoed this sentiment, with Rebecca Tinucci, Senior Director of Charging Infrastructure, emphasizing the strategic goal of surpassing the traditional gasoline vehicle experience. The venture promises to ensure electric vehicle adoption on a substantial scale, marking a historic milestone in Tesla's endeavor to install low-cost, convenient AC charging solutions at prominent destinations.
Honda Joins the NACS Coalition
Honda has officially ratified its agreement to integrate Tesla's NACS into its fleet, initiating with their new EV lineup launching in North America from 2025. This integration will also grant Honda EV owners unprecedented access to Tesla’s Supercharger stations, augmenting charging convenience manifold. Moreover, Honda has assured compatibility with NACS even for its models released before 2025, equipped with the CCS port, leveraging a specially designed adapter.
This development trails Honda's previous pledge in August 2023 to collaborate with Tesla, making it a vital player in the collaborative mission to foster a robust high-powered charging network for EVs in North America.
The list of NACS continues to grow, it now includes Ford, GM, Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, Electrify America, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Fisker and now Honda & Acura. While Hilton becomes a significant partner in offering EV owners a place to stay and charge up.
For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.
Price Increase
The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.
The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series.
The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.
Free Lifetime Supercharging
For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.
There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.
We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.
Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.
Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.
Optimus is Blind
Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.
Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.
Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.
What’s Next?
Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.
Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.
There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.
We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.
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