News
Porsche’s more refined Taycan Cross Turismo prototypes spotted in winter tests
Prototypes of the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo have been spotted winter testing in Sweden recently. Based on images of the vehicle that were captured during the icy road tests, it appears that the Taycan Cross Turismo’s design is steadily coming together.
The new pictures of the Taycan Cross Turismo features a sleek silhouette that echoes much of the design cues present in its sibling — the Porsche Taycan sedan — which is expected to enter production sometime later this year. As noted by TaycanForum.com‘s Tye, Porsche’s recent Cross Turismo test mules now have a more refined rear roofline, rear design, and rear quarter windows.
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
Similar to the Taycan sedan prototypes, one of the Cross Turismo test mules was equipped with aero wheel covers that appear designed to optimize range. Another unit, this time sporting large brakes on the front wheels, seem to hint at a high-performance variant of the electric car as well. Quite interestingly, Porsche has also fitted its Cross Turismo prototypes with faux exhausts at the rear.
As the Cross Turismo prototypes are starting to become more refined, differences between the vehicle and the Mission E Cross Turismo concept are starting to emerge. Among the most prominent of these differences is in the vehicles’ suspension, with the recent test mules being set up lower than their concept car counterpart. With this in mind, it remains to be seen if the Taycan Cross Turismo would retain its concept version’s rugged theme, considering that it is one of the vehicle’s primary features. When Porsche explained the Cross Turismo concept, for one, the company noted that the vehicle would be capable of going off-road, at least to a certain degree, thanks to its air suspension that could provide more ground clearance when needed.
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
-
- The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo prototype winter testing. (Photo: Tye/TaycanForum.com)
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo is the German automaker’s second all-electric vehicle. Unveiled last year in concept car form, the Cross Turismo was well-received as the Taycan’s (then dubbed as the Mission E sedan) more rugged sibling. Amidst the warm reception for the Taycan sedan after Porsche opened reservations for the vehicle, reports emerged from German media that the automaker’s supervisory board has approved the mass production of the Cross Turismo as well.
-
To prepare for the vehicle’s production, Porsche is adding around 300 more jobs at its Zuffenhausen site, which is currently being augmented to support the Taycan’s production lines. The Taycan Cross Turismo is expected to start production in 2020, roughly a year after its sedan sibling enters the market. It remains to be seen if the vehicle would also feature a top-tier Turbo variant, similar to the Taycan sedan.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
-
Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
Elon Musk shed two new bits of detail on Starship following its 13th test launch, which was an overwhelming success.
SpaceX launched Starship for the 13th time last Friday after two delays: one on Monday when several Raptor engines did not ignite, and another on Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions in Starbase, Texas.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. SpaceX was able to complete a necessary test of the heat shield tiles by increasing the acceleration of Starship from launch throughout the flight; 20 Starlink v3 satellites were released with no issue; the Super Heavy Booster landed safely in the Gulf of America, Ship successfully reignited engines while in space; and it also splashed down without incident in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Nevertheless, more details are coming out about Starship, and Musk is doing the talking.
Starship Will Be Retrieved in the Ocean
Musk revealed on Tuesday night that Starship would be recovered by a ship in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX routinely tries to recover Starship after splashdown in an effort to find out more about the flight by examining the spacecraft afterward.
We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship https://t.co/fUqUZTITO9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2026
-
This helps engineers find out more about why things might have happened, allows them to examine any potential damage or anomalies that might have occurred, and increases the chances of an even more successful flight next time thanks to the additional information recovered.
Ship Could Have Been Caught by Tower Arms, Musk claims
Musk has already indicated that SpaceX will plan to attempt a catch of Starship with the 14th test flight. While this would be a major accomplishment, it would be an expected next step, considering the fact that the Super Heavy Booster has already been caught by the chopsticks on numerous occasions.
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms https://t.co/6nbNrRfX9P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
A ship catch would be a great indication of where SpaceX stands in terms of reusability and launch cadence. A successful catch with relatively no incidents would be a good sign that SpaceX is nearing a more frequent launch of Starship, but also that the reusability of the massive rocket would be something many would expect in the near future.
It is a necessity to make life multiplanetary.
-
Elon Musk has updated his timeline for when humans will walk on Mars and for when ships will simply get there.
The objective of getting to Mars has been one of Musk’s biggest goals since becoming a serial entrepreneur and realizing that time on Earth is limited. Musk has said several times he hopes to die on Mars, and not by impact.
Musk now believes that people will be on Mars in “roughly 5 to 7 years.” He said that a Mars lander will get there “a few years sooner.”
People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years.
Mars lander a few years sooner.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
The response from Musk comes after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that SpaceX’s biggest priority is the Moon and not Mars. Because of this, Isaacman conceded that he believes nuclear power and propulsion investments will provide “potentially the pathway with the fewest miracles required to put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.”
-
Of course, this is what NASA can do through taxpayer funding and nuclear investments, he added.
Musk’s grand ambitions are much more optimistic than most, and it is certainly a double-edged sword. This is not the first time timelines for Mars have been somewhat lofty, especially to those normal thinkers like you and me, not super geniuses like Musk.
In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla frontman has said on at least a dozen occasions that we could be on Mars in the coming years. Musk said 2020 would be the big year as early as 2009. In 2020, he was “highly confident” of a landing in 2026, and had even said 2024 in a best-case scenario.
The point is, the range has varied, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll get there. This latest adjustment to the timeline is typical of Musk, and while the Moon has seemingly taken priority over Mars, it is still worth mentioning that the ultimate goal is to make life multiplanetary, and it starts potentially with the Red Planet.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
