News
SpaceX aces fourth Starship flight test
SpaceX successfully launched and landed its Super Heavy booster and Starship on its fourth integrated flight test, with each making a soft splashdown in the water.
Starship took to the skies at 7:50 am CT from a foggy Starbase, Texas, in an effort to surpass previous flight milestones.
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/2Z1PdNPYPG
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 6, 2024
As the countdown hit zero, 32 of 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster lit, with the outlier being an engine on the outer ring. Despite the engine out, the booster still ascended with ease away from the launch mount and broke through the thick fog into clear blue skies with views streamed back to the ground from just above one of the grid fins.
As Starship climbed, everything continued to operate nominally all the way through the hot staging which saw Super Heavy Booster 11 shut down all but its 3 center Raptor engines as Starship 29 lit its 6 Raptor engines to pull away from the massive booster. As soon as Starship was clear, Booster 11 completed a flip and boostback burn to begin its trip for a planned soft touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico by relighting 10 Raptor engines.
Once the boostback burn was complete, the hot staging ring was ejected to reduce the overall mass of the booster to help it survive reentry and landing. Future Super Heavy boosters will feature a lighter hot staging ring that will not be ejected. As the booster made its way back, it re-orientated to vertical and began re-entry back through the atmosphere, and unlike the Falcon 9, it does not perform an entry burn.
Hot stage jettison pic.twitter.com/J48QtQD1Ae
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 6, 2024
At around 7 minutes and 15 seconds into flight, the Super Heavy booster lit 12 out of a planned 13 engines for its landing burn, followed shortly by quite a bit of debris flying by the onboard camera, but it did not affect anything critical as seconds later Booster 11 made a successful splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico before a slow planned tip over into the water.
Super Heavy has splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico pic.twitter.com/hIY3Gkq57k
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 6, 2024
As Booster 11 completed the first successful soft landing, Starship 29 fired its six Raptor engines, three sea level and three vacuum, with engine shutoff coming in at eight and a half minutes into flight. The starship then entered a long coast phase as it passed between the Florida Keys and Cuba and transited over the Atlantic Ocean, followed by Africa.
During IFT-3, live views were provided for a majority of this portion but due to an unknown issue, cameras didn’t come back until just before 37 minutes into the flight. Elon Musk posted on X that they had a data signal the entire time including live views from internal cameras.
45 minutes into the flight, the true test of Starship began as plasma started to build up, but this time, Starship was in the correct orientation, and the heatshield was facing the correct way to give the ship its best chance at survival.
As Starship descended, plasma build-up increased with callouts from mission control noting rising temperatures on the nose but all within acceptable limits. At just over 54 minutes into the flight, Starship made it further than the third flight test and into unknown territory.
Plasma builds up as Starship re-enters the atmosphere (Credit SpaceX)
57 minutes into the flight, peak heating had passed but tiles were starting to fall away from the forward flap followed by melting of the lower portion, despite this damage, Starship held strong and in the correct orientation as it descended.
Starship continued its descent and, with significant damage, still made it through to its own landing burn and performed its flip to a vertical orientation and a soft touchdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Damage to the forward flap as seen during the landing burn (Credit SpaceX)
Even with the damage inflicted on Starship, it completed all test objectives while providing SpaceX with incredibly valuable data that will be used to make the ship stronger on future test flights. The Starlink antenna also survived the entire flight which ensured this data made it back to mission control.
With this successful mission complete, SpaceX could launch the 5th flight by mid to late July and possibly even attempt a catch of the Super Heavy booster according to Elon Musk.
Catch a replay of this epic mission below!
Watch Starship’s fourth flight test → https://t.co/bJFjLCiTbK https://t.co/SjpjscHoUB
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 6, 2024
How do you think this flight went overall, and will the fifth flight take place by August?
Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.
Lifestyle
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
Tesla shares dashcam footage of FSD Supervised stopping mid intersection to avoid a T-bone crash.
Tesla is putting another Full Self-Driving save in front of its 24.8 million followers on X.
On Tuesday morning, Tesla’s main account shared a dashcam clip with the caption “FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash.” The footage came from an owner posting as TheNewGrid, who described what happened at a stop sign: “I looked at the car coming to the stop sign figured they would stop, my car went, then came to a stop mid intersection as they flew by. Had I been manually driving this would have resulted in a crash.”
The sequence is the notable part. FSD had already started crossing when the other driver ran the stop sign. Instead of pressing on, the car braked hard in the middle of the intersection and let the crossing vehicle pass in front of it. By the owner’s own account, they had made the same assumption the software initially made, that the other car would stop, and would not have corrected in time.
FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
The clip is the latest in a run of safety posts Tesla has amplified over the past several days. On Saturday, the company shared a video from Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who sold his Bentley for a Model Y and said he was buying Teslas with FSD for 10 of his employees. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, followed up by writing that Tesla self-driving “reacts to other people cutting into your path with super-human response times.” On Monday, a Cybertruck owner posted footage of FSD moving across three lanes from a red light to clear a path for an ambulance approaching from behind.
This recent clip also lands a few weeks after Tesla began shipping Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD v14.3.9, a feature that can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when a frontal collision is imminent or the driver appears distracted. Elluswamy said in September that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” are coming with v15, the release Tesla has tied to round the clock Robotaxi operation.
The safety messaging matters beyond social media. Tesla has said FSD Supervised was 4.1 times less likely to crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on European roads, and it has been putting those figures in front of regulators. Eight EU countries have now approved FSD Supervised, with Croatia the most recent, but the EU’s bloc-wide vote originally set for October 6 has been pushed to December at the earliest.
FSD Supervised is still a Level 2 system, and the driver remains responsible at all times. Even heavy users find reasons to step in. Teslarati’s Joey Klender, who uses FSD for about 76 percent of his driving, laid out five recurring issues on Tuesday that still prompt him to intervene. Clips like this one show the other column of that ledger: moments where the software caught a mistake a human was about to make.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Tesla is now starting to ship a “Halloween Mode” that is filled with some creepy and fun features; the company says, “This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels.”
The update is just the latest in a series of updates that Tesla typically ships out in a seasonal fashion. The Spring and Summer Updates provided some fun novelty items while also packing some cool features that are actually useful for the ownership experience.
This one seems to be more fun-forward, and there are not any updates to the Full Self-Driving suite or overall operation of the vehicle. Instead, these novelty features are geared toward getting you in the mood for the Fall and Halloween.
Halloween Mode now rolling out 🎃
This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels
– Ghost costume on your car’s avatar
– Enable Trick or Treat to play spooky sounds & flicker the lights when visitors approach
– New haunting light show, wraps & lock sound
– A rather chilling Photobooth
– Frighten people remotely by speaking through the app…your car will say it in a voice of its own
Side effects may include neighborhood notoriety
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
New Ghost Costume on Car Avatar
Driver Visualization will now show your vehicle as a ghost, as an all-white sheet is draped over the vehicle. Pedestrians are turned into mummies or skeletons, and other vehicles are all a spooky green:
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, the Park Scene with your Tesla now displays that ghost costume draped over your vehicle in the foreground of a scary backdrop with Jack-o-Lanterns and a haunted house:
Credit: Tesla
Trick or Treat Mode
Trick or Treat Mode will enable the vehicle to play spooky sounds and flicker the lights as visitors approach. This might be a nice touch for when you’re handing out candy to kids on Halloween Night.
Other Features
Tesla is also adding a new Light Show, new Wrap Options, and a new Lock Sound with this update.
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, Photobooth has a new Halloween option:
Credit: Tesla
You will also be able to speak remotely through the app and transmit your voice to people outside, which is not a new feature, but the car will say it in a voice of its own, which is a new feature with that bullhorn-like feature.
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
