Pilot Travel Centers and Tesla have opened their first Megacharger site for heavy-duty electric trucks, Pilot said Oct. 8. The site, at a Pilot travel center in Ellabell, Ga., has six charging stalls.
Twelve more heavy-duty sites are under construction, and three are nearly finished: a Flying J in Tulare, Calif., scheduled to open Oct. 9; a Flying J in Fort Stockton, Texas; and a Pilot in North Las Vegas, Nev.
Each site will have four to eight stalls running Tesla’s V4 cabinet technology. According to Tesla, each stall can deliver up to 1.2 megawatts, enough for a Tesla Semi to recover 60% of its charge in 30 minutes.
Pilot, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary based in Knoxville, Tenn., operates more than 900 locations in 43 states and five Canadian provinces. The Megacharger network is planned for select locations along I-5, I-10, and other major freight corridors in California, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, and Texas.
“Pilot is proud to bring heavy-duty charging directly to key trucking routes and pair it with the services and amenities drivers rely on,” said Shannon Sturgil, senior vice president of alternative fuels at Pilot.
Ellabell’s opening came later than Pilot projected. When the companies announced the partnership in January, Pilot said construction would begin in the first half of 2026 and the first sites would open in the summer.
The January announcement also named New Mexico among the initial states. The October release drops it and lists Indiana.
The chargers are arriving as Tesla moves the Semi into high-volume production, which started at its Sparks, Nev., factory on Sept. 24. Tesla expects more than 30 charging stations and over 200 megawatt-capable posts by year-end, including the Pilot sites. The plant is designed for 50,000 trucks a year.
Pilot said the heavy-duty sites build on its passenger EV charging network and its renewable diesel and biodiesel offerings.
“With these initial locations, we’re making fleet electrification a more accessible option for long-haul transportation,” Sturgil said.
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