News
NASA confirms SpaceX will become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station
NASA has unambiguously confirmed that SpaceX – with its Crew Dragon spacecraft – will soon become the first private company in history to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), both an unexpected twist from the usually tight-lipped space agency and a major upset for Boeing.
Shortly after revealing that the first astronaut-rated Crew Dragon capsule had been completed and shipped eastward, SpaceX and NASA confirmed that the historic spacecraft arrived at SpaceX’s Florida processing facilities on Thursday, February 13th. With that milestone out of the way, it’s now believed that all the hardware needed for SpaceX’s ‘Demo-2’ astronaut launch debut – Falcon 9 booster B1058, a Falcon 9 upper stage, Crew Dragon capsule C206, and a Crew Dragon trunk – is finished, acceptance-tested, and preparing for flight in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Extremely out of character for NASA given that Crew Dragon Demo-2 is expected to launch no earlier than two or three months from now, the space agency’s public statement that SpaceX will launch astronauts first simultaneously implies bad news for Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft. Contracted under the Commercial Crew Program in 2014, Boeing – awarded $5.1B – and SpaceX – awarded $3.1B – have been working to build two separate crew launch vehicles (Starliner and Crew Dragon) with the intention of ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). While both providers have had their own challenges, Boeing has been beset by numerous software failures born out during Starliner’s December 2019 orbital launch debut.
The Commercial Crew account has since deleted its tweet and NASA’s accompanying blog post – linked in said tweet – was tweaked to reflect a slightly different interpretation, but the original text unequivocally stated that “the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft [assigned to] the first crew launch from American soil since 2011 has arrived at the launch site.” Given that both the tweet and blog post contained that exact same phrase, the fact that NASA retroactively censored and corrected itself strongly suggests that SpaceX will, in fact, become the first private company in history to launch astronauts into orbit.
NASA has a fairly notorious and years-long history of going well out of its way to avoid saying or implying anything that could be perceived as even slightly critical of Boeing. A prime contractor dating back to the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, Boeing has effectively secured billions of dollars of NASA’s annual budget and possesses deep political sway thanks in large part to the revolving doors between industry and government and the hundreds of millions of dollars it has spent on lobbying over the last two decades.
More recently, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft suffered several major software-related failures during its December 2019 Orbital Flight Test, narrowly avoiding a second “catastrophic” failure mode solely because a separate software failure 48 hours prior forced the company to reexamine its code. In simple terms, both software failures probably should and could have been caught and fixed before launch if even a semblance of routine digital simulations and integrated vehicle testing had been performed by Boeing.
Unsurprisingly, NASA – at least after the fact – is now extremely concerned by the lack of such a basic and commonsense level of quality control in Boeing’s Starliner software pipeline. Even NASA, arguably, could and should have been attentive enough to catch some of Boeing’s shortcomings before Starliner’s launch debut. Adding to the embarrassment, NASA performed a “pretty invasive” $5M review of SpaceX’s safety practices and general engineering culture last year, triggered (not a joke) after CEO Elon Musk was seen very briefly smoking on a recorded interview. As part of regulations for the Commercial Crew Program, NASA was obligated to perform a similar review of Boeing’s safety culture, but the contractor demanded that NASA pay five times more – $25M – for the same thing.
NASA unsurprisingly balked at Boeing’s demands and wound up performing a more or less symbolic “paper” review that typically involves ‘auditing’ paperwork supplied by the company itself. Despite the fact that Boeing would soon find itself mired in two fatal 737 Max crashes, killing 346 people as a result of shoddy software, an unreliable design, and bad internal communication, NASA still never pursued a similar safety review with Boeing. Now, only after a nearly-catastrophic in-space failure, NASA has finally decided that that safety review is necessary, while both NASA and Boeing will also have to extensively review all Starliner software and fix the flawed practices used to create and qualify it.
Perhaps most importantly, NASA and Boeing need to determine whether Starliner’s software failures were a one-off fluke or something symptomatic of deeper problems. Due to that uncertainty and the massive amount of work that will be required to answer those questions, it’s almost certain that Boeing will have to perform a second uncrewed Starliner test flight for NASA to verify that its problems have been rectified. A second OFT would almost certainly delay Boeing’s astronaut launch debut by 6-12 months. SpaceX’s astronaut launch debut, for example, was delayed at least 9 months after a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during thruster testing after a flawless orbital launch and recovery.
As a result, even though SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ‘Demo-2’ astronaut launch debut is likely more than two months away, even some part of NASA – famous for incredibly neutral and conservative public statements – appears to be all but certain that SpaceX will launch astronauts first. As of February 13th, 2020, all Demo-2 Falcon 9 and Dragon hardware is likely finished and awaiting integration in Florida. If things go as planned over the next several weeks, Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon could launch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley as early as late-April or May 2020.
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Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words, ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026, officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic law only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
News
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
The Tesla Model X was the fastest-selling used vehicle in the United States in the first quarter of the year, crushing every other used car in America.
iSeeCars data for the first quarter shows that the Model X was the fastest-selling used car, lasting just 25.6 days on the market on average, two days better than that of the second-place Lexus RX 350h. The Cybertruck, Model Y, and Model S, in seventh, ninth, and thirteenth place, respectively, also made the list.
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
Bringing closure to these two vehicles signaled the end of the road for the cars that have effectively built Tesla’s reputation for luxury and high-end passenger vehicles.
Relying on the sales of its mass market Model Y and Model 3, as well as leaning on the success of future products like the Cybercab, is the angle Tesla has chosen to take.
Teslas are also performing extremely well as a whole on the resale market. iSeeCars data shows that, “while the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old non-Tesla EV fell 10.3% in Q1 2026 year-over-year, the average price of a used Tesla was essentially flat at 0.1% lower across the same period. Traditional gas car prices dropped 2.8% during this same period.”
Additionally, market share for gas cars has dropped nearly 3 percent since the same quarter last year. Tesla has remained level, while the non-Tesla EV market share has increased 30 percent, mostly due to more models available.
Nevertheless, those non-Tesla EVs have seen their value drop by over 10 percent, while Tesla’s values have remained level.
Executive Analyst Karl Brauer said:
“Used electric vehicles without a Tesla badge have lost more than 10% of their value in the past year. This compares to stable values for Teslas and hybrids, and a modest 2.8% drop for traditional gasoline vehicles.”
Teslas, as well as non-luxury hybrids, are displaying the strongest resistance in the face of faltering demand, the publication says. But the more impressive performance is that of the Model X alone.
Tesla’s decision to stop production of the Model X may have played some part in the vehicle’s pristine performance in Q1. With the car already placed at a premium price point, used models are already more appealing to consumers. Perhaps second-hand versions were more than enough for those who wanted a Model X, and only a Model X.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck’s head-scratching trim sold terribly, recall documents reveal
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
After Tesla decided to build a Rear-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck trim back in 2025, which was void of many features and only featured a small discount.
The head-scratching offering was only available for a few months, and evidently, it did not sell very well, which we all suspected. New recall documents on the vehicle from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now reveal just how poorly it sold.
The recall deals with a potentially separating wheel stud and potentially impacts 173 Cybertruck units with the 18-inch steel wheels. The Cybertruck RWD was the only trim level to feature these, and the 173 potentially impacted units represent a portion of the population of pickups. Therefore, it’s not the entire number of RWD Cybertruck sold, but it could show how little interest it gathered.
The NHTSA document states:
“On affected vehicles, higher severity road perturbations and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
Only 5 percent are expected to be impacted, meaning less than 10 units will have the issue if the NHTSA and Tesla estimates are correct. Nevertheless, the true story here is how terribly the RWD Cybertruck sold.
Tesla ended production and stopped offering the RWD Cybertruck to customers last September. For just $10,000 less than the All-Wheel-Drive trim, Tesla offered the RWD Cybertruck with just one motor, textile seats instead of leather, only 7 speakers instead of 15, no Rear Touchscreen, no Powered Tonneau Cover for the truck bed, and no 120v/240v outlets.
For just $10,000 more, at $79,990, owners could have received all of those premium features, as well as a more capable All-Wheel-Drive powertrain that featured Adaptive Air Suspension. The discount simply was not worth the sacrifices.
Orders were few and far between, and sources told us that when it was offered, sales were extremely tempered because customers could not see the value in this trim level.
Even Tesla’s most loyal supporters thought the offering was kind of a joke, and the $10,000 extra was simply worth it.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
