After trying to revolutionise electric vehicles, colonise Mars and drive support for his favoured cryptocurrency, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has his sights on a new frontier - restaurants.
At the end of last month, Tesla filed paperwork to trademark its name being used for restaurant services including self-service and takeaway restaurants.
And while hamburgers, fries and sundaes don't necessarily fit with Tesla's status as a multi-billion dollar technology company, a clue as to the thinking behind the move was shared by Musk himself back in 2018.
"Gonna put an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant at one of the new Tesla Supercharger locations in LA," he said.
After that tweet, the company applied to create a restaurant and supercharger station in Santa Monica in California, but nothing happened until earlier this year when new plans were created - but with no restaurant attached this time.
The company has applied for three new trademarks for use with restaurants - one for the word 'Tesla', one stylised version of the word 'Tesla' and one for its 'T' logo.
There are currently 12 supercharger stations in Aotearoa with a new one planned for early next year in Auckland, adding to the six superchargers available on Karangahape Road and six at Sylvia park.
According to Tesla, the original 85 kWh Model S takes about 20 minutes to charge to 50 percent and 75 minutes to 100 percent, meaning there's an opportunity to engage a captive audience during the charging time.
But given their proximity to local services and restaurants already, it may be a little while before we see a Tesla-branded takeaway on this side of the Pacific Ocean.
