Experiential charging hubs as tourism micro-destinations: a mobilities-oriented netnography of Tesla’s Hollywood diner–supercharger

Electric vehicles (EVs) are usually discussed in terms of grids, markets and climate targets, yet for drivers the transition is also experienced through the ordinary act of stopping to charge. This article examines Tesla’s Hollywood Diner–Supercharger complex as an attempt to turn a charging stop into a tourism-oriented micro-destination within electric automobility. This framing highlights how selected charging environments can borrow from hospitality, leisure, spectacle and place making to make compulsory waiting more inhabitable and route-based mobility more experiential. Using a mobilities-oriented netnography of 8,527 Reddit and YouTube comments, the study identifies four interlinked themes: compulsory waiting and the transformation of the charging stop; the reworking of a transitional charging site into an experiential micro-destination; ambivalent responses to Tesla’s branded spectacle; and the uneven geographies of experiential charging. Bringing together servicescapes, tourism micro-destinations, social infrastructure and mobility justice, the article argues that experiential charging hubs reveal how the EV transition reorganises not only infrastructure networks, but also the spatial, temporal and affective conditions of roadside mobility.