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SpaceX confirms plan to activate South Texas launch site in late 2018

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8 years ago

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Following our report that Elon Musk’s space company was progressing on the development of a new launch site in Texas, SpaceX’s Senior Communications Manager James Gleeson has confirmed with Teslarati that the company is, in fact, working towards the activation of its South Texas launch facilities in late 2018, possibly sooner.

“We are currently targeting late 2018 for the site in South Texas to be operational but we’re reviewing our progress and will turn the site online as soon as it’s ready.”

Combined with a comment made in early January by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, BFS development by all appearances is going quite smoothly. Still, it’s likely that the Boca Chica site’s late 2018 “operational” status refers mainly to an ability to support something less than orbital launches, perhaps suborbital testing of BFS. According to a source knowledgeable with SpaceX’s South Texas outlook, there are currently no plans to manufacture BFR in the region, although the company has enjoyed the warm welcomes it’s received from local leaders enthusiastic about the company’s local expansion.

The question of where to test the first Big F____ Spaceship (BFS) prototype also appears to be undecided at the moment, and comments made by CEO Elon Musk immediately after Falcon Heavy’s inaugural launch further confirmed that a couple of different options are under consideration, one of which involves using Boca Chica as a testing facility for the Mars rocket. True orbital launch operations are thus highly unlikely to begin at Boca Chica any earlier than mid-to-late 2019, and that aspirational timeline is of course intimately dependent upon the relatively smooth development and testing of BFS, as well as the potential value SpaceX might see in a fully-private orbital launch complex compatible with their proven Falcon family of rockets. A site wholly dedicated to Starlink launches, for example, could rapidly speed up the internet satellite constellation’s deployment, the completion of which could be a massive source of income capable of funding the company’s interplanetary ambitions.

The boom of a giant crane (possibly meant for BFS) seen in late 2017, parked at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities. (Reddit /u/ ticklestuff)

While SpaceX’s communications policy reasonably avoids commenting on employee movement, the South Texas site’s late 2018 operational status would undeniably require a fair amount of work, likely on the order of the refurbishment and repair of the SLC-40 pad. This indirectly lends at least a sliver of credence to a recent claim from Space Florida, a state-run economic development agency focused on aerospace, that a portion of the workers involved in the refurbishment of LC-40 and LC-39A’s Falcon Heavy upgrades have begun “working on their Brownsville [TX] site.”

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Indeed, local South Texas fans of SpaceX have done an outstanding job of tracking the progress made at the Boca Chica launch facility over the last several years, and activity at the site does appear to have exploded in recent months, relative to the several years of quiet landscaping that followed its 2014 announcement.

Most recently, the addition of a solar array installation, Tesla Powerpacks, and an 800-kilowatt generator gives the construction zone the ability to generate considerably more than 1MW of grid-independent power, likely more than enough to operate both a bevy of construction equipment and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon communications complex.

Solar installation at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas [Credit: Nomadd via NASASpaceFlight.com Forum]

Ultimately, it’s all but guaranteed that significant increases in construction and development activity (or the lack thereof) will be immediately noted and communicated by observant locals. If SpaceX hopes to make its South Texas site operational before the end of the year, major work can be expected to begin within a handful of months at most. In the meantime, activities in Los Angeles, CA, particularly the Port of San Pedro, will offer another source of data on BFS’ development progress. Now we wait…

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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 releases cryptic teaser for something massive and it’s coming this week

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

Published

12 hours ago

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October 5, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has released a cryptic teaser for something massive, and it will release details on it this week. With many different projects in the works, there is a lot of speculation going on about what it could potentially be, but we have a few ideas.

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

It then ends with “10/7,” meaning it will announce something on October 7, which is this Tuesday:

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Given that Tesla has been working on a handful of pretty notable projects that are set for unveiling at the end of this year, and there are some clues that seem to point in their direction with this short teaser video.

There are two projects that come to mind almost immediately: the Tesla Roadster is one, and the “E41” or affordable model is the other. Here’s what we know about both:

Tesla Roadster Demo Event

Tesla said earlier this year that it would have a demo event for the Roadster to unveil some new technologies and show off what it has been working on over the past few years.

There have been a lot of crazy things in the works for the Roadster, including a SpaceX package that would use cold-gas thrusters for an insane 1.1-second 0-60 MPH acceleration rate. This package was also supposed to help it hover, something CEO Elon Musk has teased for the past few years.

The Roadster was ready for release earlier this year, but after Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and VP of Powertrain Lars Moravy showed Musk what they had come up with, he wanted more.

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Moravy said on the Ride the Lightning podcast earlier this year:

“What we had come up with exceeded what we originally planned. So, Elon was like, ‘Wow, great. Let’s do more!’”

The Roadster event was coined as “the most epic demo,” and since it was planned for the end of 2025, it is totally feasible to believe this could be it.

Elon Musk teases Tesla’s “most epic demo” by end of year

Tesla ‘E41’ Affordable Model

Some believe the teaser could be the official launch of Tesla’s affordable model, which Musk said earlier this year is simply a stripped down Model Y.

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There have been some sightings of this vehicle in the past few weeks, including one on Friday that showed the vehicle completely uncovered for the first time:

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The launch of the affordable model makes sense, especially from a timing perspective. With the $7,500 EV tax credit officially coming to a close on September 30, many are wondering how Tesla will spark growth in its deliveries. A more affordable EV would be the perfect response, and it is something that Tesla has been working on for some time.

Other Potential Ideas

There are some pretty interesting ideas as to what the teaser could be apart from the Roadster or affordable model. Some believe it could be a cooling fan for a GPU cluster, which would make sense considering Tesla’s prowess in data.

Grok also made an interesting guess, stating it could be a propeller for a secret air taxi Tesla is developing. This seems sort of our of left field.

We do know Tesla hosted a handful of influencers at Gigafactory Texas this past week, so whatever the company showed them is likely what will be unveiled on Tuesday.

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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.

Published

1 day ago

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October 4, 2025

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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:

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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.”

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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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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.”

Published

2 days ago

on

October 4, 2025

By

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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