Tesla Bringing Starlink Cellphone Service to Cars, Confirms Elon Musk

Tesla’s electric vehicles (EVs) will soon be able to connect to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites for emergency calls and texts, the CEO of both companies confirmed on Thursday (via Tesla North).

The confirmation followed SpaceX and T-Mobile’s earlier announcement of a new global cellphone service that would launch with V2 Starlink satellites sometime next year. While responding to tweets after the event, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla cars would get emergency access to this service.

Tesla owner and investor Dave Lee asked Musk, “Will Tesla cars get this feature too in the future to connect directly to Starlink satellites for emergency calls/texts?” Musk replied to his tweet, saying “yes.”

Meanwhile, @teslaownersSV asked if the feature would be included with Tesla’s Premium Connectivity subscription. Musk responded with another “yes.” Premium Connectivity offers a 24/7 data plan to let you stream music, media and more in your Tesla.

Being able to place emergency calls from your car could certainly come in handy if you’re stuck somewhere with no cell reception (parts of rural Canada come to mind) or a disaster takes out cellular service in the area.

However, since Tesla is incorporating the service into a paid subscription, the company might have plans for it to eventually do more than just make emergency calls.

Starlink’s cellular service will initially offer 2-4 Mbps of bandwidth — only enough for voice calls and text messages. However, as Starlink advances beyond 2-4 Mbps for satellite phone service, Tesla could do much more with it, as data services might become available.

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