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SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You arrives at Panama Canal

Drone ship OCISLY crests the Florida horizon on April 10th. The vessel is now set to transit the Panama Canal on a journey to California. (Richard Angle)

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Ten days and one unexpected detour after SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) departed Port Canaveral, Florida for what could be the last time ever, the ship has arrived at the Panama Canal.

The five thousand mile (~8000 km) journey began almost exactly on June 10th and saw drone ship OCISLY towed to the Bahamas – an unanticipated development. Unlike drone ship sibling Just Read The Instructions (JRTI), which made the same journey in reverse about a year and a half ago, OCISLY was loaded onto the deck of large semi-submersible transport ship known as Mighty Servant 1 (MS1). Normally used to transporting entire ships and oil and gas equipment weighing tens of thousands of tons, a SpaceX drone ship – while still huge – is a featherweight load in comparison.

As a result, despite a several days spent waiting in the Bahamas, MS1 – carrying drone ship OCISLY – sped to the Panama Canal’s Atlantic harbor in just five days, nearly averaging its top speed with a load.

Following a midday June 20th arrival just outside of the canal’s protected harbor, MS1 and OCISLY have simply been waiting their turn – one in a queue of around 70 other large ships. It remains to be seen how long the SpaceX drone ship will have to wait before transiting the canal and beginning the last major leg of its journey to Port of Long Beach, California. Due to the massive dimensions of MS1’s drone ship ‘cargo,’ special permission was needed from the Panama Canal Authority to (slightly) surpass its normal size limits.

The exceptionally small margin of error for this particular transit – leaving just a few feet (~1m) between OCISLY and the canal walls – may require special attention and a longer journey than usual. In other words, SpaceX could have to wait days for a unique window or – as part of its one-time wide-load transit permit – its transit window may already have been scheduled within a day or two of arrival.

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The latter scenario is more likely and could see Mighty Servant 1 reach the Pacific Ocean as early as Wednesday or Thursday. Last-second transit slots are still available on Friday, June 25th as of Monday, indicating that the Panama Canal isn’t particularly congested at the moment.

Once MS1 and OCISLY complete their transit and reach the Pacific, the pair will have approximately 3300 miles (~5300 km) to go to reach Port of Long Beach, the drone ship’s new home. Assuming Mighty Servant 1 can manage a similarly impressive average speed on the last leg of its journey, the trip from Panama City to Los Angeles could take less than ten days, culminating in an arrival within the first several days of July. That would leave SpaceX several weeks to check out the drone ship after its long journey and prepare it for its first West Coast booster recovery.

For several months, SpaceX has been angling to return its quiet West Coast launch facilities to flight with a string of dedicated polar Starlink launches – the first of which could happen as early as July. While very little else is known about the status of that launch, OCISLY arriving in the first week of the month would all but guarantee that drone ship availability won’t be the cause of any hypothetical upcoming delays.

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts in new video teasing capabilities

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet.

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Credit: Elon Musk | X

Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts, a new video released by CEO Elon Musk shows, a crazy development and advancement in the robotics project the company has been working on for a few years.

Optimus has been a major focus of Tesla for the past several years, especially as Musk has said he believes it will be the biggest product of all time and could be the biggest contributor to the company’s valuation.

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet:

The video shows Optimus working with a Kung Fu teacher, known as a Shifu, going through what appears to be some sort of routine of combinations. It’s quite impressive to see the fluidity of the movements and Optimus’s ability to keep up with Shifu.

Tesla has been “working hard” to scale Optimus production, Musk said last week, a project that has obviously confronted both AI and manufacturing teams with a variety of challenges.

The plan is to have an annual production run-rate of one million units by 2030, and there were plans to build 5,000 units this year.

Elon Musk gives update on Tesla Optimus progress

Musk still believes Optimus will make up roughly 80 percent of Tesla’s value. In January, he said it would be “overwhelmingly the value of the company.”

Tesla plans to launch the Gen 3 version of Optimus soon, and although a video of a new-look prototype was released by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, the company’s frontman stated that this was not what the next-generation prototype would look like.

Elon Musk confirms Tesla has never shown Optimus V3 design yet

This video seems to show there is still significant progress being made on the Optimus project, and it will be perhaps one of the most impressive humanoid robots available to consumers in the coming years.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 gets new release date, Elon Musk details

“Last minute bug cropped up with V14. Released is pushed to Monday, but that gives us time to add a few more features.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving version 14 has gotten a new release date after new details from CEO Elon Musk opened up some new perspectives on the suite.

Originally slated for an “early wide release” of v14 this past week, then a launch of v14.1 and v14.2 this week and next week, respectively, delays arose after Tesla’s Autopilot team found some issues within the software.

Tesla FSD V14 set for early wide release next week: Elon Musk

Musk detailed on X this morning that a “last minute bug” appeared before release, which has now pushed FSD v14’s release back to this Monday:

Musk also said the delay would give Tesla the ability to “add a few more features,” which seems like an added advantage, although he did not provide any additional details on what these features could be.

In classic Musk fashion, he has teased the capabilities of this version of the FSD suite since it became public knowledge that Tesla was working on it. He said that it is the second most important update for the AI/Autopilot team since FSD v12.

V14 will have a parameter count that is ten times what previous iterations were, which should provide more accuracy and a more human-like operation.

Musk has said v14 “feels alive” and has used the word “sentient” to describe its performance. The goal with the new FSD rollouts is to eliminate as many interventions as possible, making it as close to human driving as possible.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla just got a weird price target boost from a notable bear

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Credit: Tesla Manufacturing

Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a weird price target boost from a notable bear just a day after it announced its strongest quarter in terms of vehicle deliveries and energy deployments.

JPMorgan raised its price target on Tesla shares from $115 to $150. It maintained its ‘Underweight’ rating on the stock.

Despite Tesla reporting 497,099 deliveries, about 12 percent above the 443,000 anticipated from the consensus, JPMorgan is still skeptical that the company can keep up its momentum, stating most of its Q3 strength came from leaning on the removal of the $7,500 EV tax credit, which expired on September 30.

Tesla hits record vehicle deliveries and energy deployments in Q3 2025

The firm said Tesla benefited from a “temporary stronger-than-expected industry-wide pull-forward” as the tax credit expired. It is no secret that consumers flocked to the company this past quarter to take advantage of the credit.

The bump will need to be solidified as the start of a continuing trend of strong vehicle deliveries, the firm said in a note to investors. Analysts said that one quarter of strength was “too soon to declare Tesla as having sustainably returned to growth in its core business.”

JPMorgan does not anticipate Tesla having strong showings with vehicle deliveries after Q4.

There are two distinct things that stick out with this note: the first is the lack of recognition of other parts of Tesla’s business, and the confusion that surrounds future quarters.

JPMorgan did not identify Tesla’s strength in autonomy, energy storage, or robotics, with autonomy and robotics being the main focuses of the company’s future. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving and Robotaxi efforts are incredibly relevant and drive more impact moving forward than vehicle deliveries.

Additionally, the confusion surrounding future delivery numbers in quarters past Q3 is evident.

Will Tesla thrive without the EV tax credit? Five reasons why they might

Tesla will receive some assistance from deliveries of vehicles that will reach customers in Q4, but will still qualify for the credit under the IRS’s revised rules. It will also likely introduce an affordable model this quarter, which should have a drastic impact on deliveries depending on pricing.

Tesla shares are trading at $422.40 at 2:35 p.m. on the East Coast.

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