Pilot and Tesla open first electric semi megacharger in Georgia

Pilot and Tesla have opened their first Tesla Megacharger site for heavy-duty electric trucks at a Pilot travel center in Ellabell, Georgia, just outside Savannah. The six heavy-duty charging stalls at Pilot #1390 are now open, marking the launch of a charging network designed to support electric semi-trucks along major U.S. freight corridors.

The opening is the first rollout from a collaboration Pilot and Tesla announced in January to install Tesla Megachargers at select Pilot and Flying J locations across California, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada and Texas. Twelve additional heavy-duty charging locations are already under construction, with three nearing completion: Flying J #1071 in Tulare, California, Flying J #553 in Fort Stockton, Texas, and Pilot #341 in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

Each location in the network will feature between four and eight high-power charging stalls powered by Tesla's V4 cabinet technology. According to Tesla, each stall can deliver up to 1.2 megawatts of power, enabling a Tesla Semi to recover 60% of its charge in 30 minutes — roughly the length of a standard driver break.

"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, Pilot's senior vice president of alternative fuels. Pilot says the initial locations are intended to make fleet electrification a more accessible option for long-haul transportation.

The site choice matters for drivers. Putting megawatt charging inside existing travel centers means electric-truck drivers get access to the same parking, food, showers and rest areas as everyone else, instead of being routed to isolated charging depots. For fleets testing electric tractors on regional routes, corridor charging along I-5, I-10 and other major lanes is the missing piece that makes dispatching an electric truck beyond a fixed depot route possible.

Pilot says the network will initially focus on charging for Tesla Semi trucks, though it may expand in the future to support heavy-duty electric vehicles from other manufacturers. The Knoxville, Tennessee-based company operates more than 900 travel centers across 43 states and five Canadian provinces, serving an average of 1.2 million guests daily, which gives the partnership a built-in footprint for rapid expansion if demand materializes.

The buildout adds to Pilot's broader alternative-energy investments, which include a coast-to-coast passenger EV charging network and lower-carbon fuel options such as renewable diesel and biodiesel. Whether electric long-haul scales quickly or slowly, the first megacharger sites give fleets a real place to test the economics of electric tractors on actual freight lanes.

For now, the network is a Tesla Semi story. But the infrastructure being poured — high-power cabinets, grid connections and truck-accessible stalls at major travel centers — is the same groundwork any future heavy-duty EV charging network will need.