News
SpaceX ramps BFR factory construction as Mr Steven arm surgery continues
Photos taken on July 1st show that land leased by SpaceX to build the first port-located BFR factory and Falcon 9 refurbishment center is continuing to ramp initial construction work, ranging from general clean-up of the long-abandoned berth to serious foundation preparation where SpaceX’s new rocket warehouse will be built.
Previously a shipyard, the Berth 240 facility now leased by SpaceX sat abandoned for the better part of a decade, and features a number of buildings deemed historic landmarks by the city of Los Angeles. As the new tenant, SpaceX is expected to do at least a little refurbishment, with the goal of leaving the site in better shape than they found it in at the end of their 10-year lease. The company does have permission, nonetheless, to demolish one less historic building in order to make space for their planned BFR factory, the construction of which is expected to take 12-18 months for Phase 1 and another 12 or so months for Phase 2, meshing nicely with SpaceX real estate director Bruce McHugh’s estimate of “three to five years” to completion.
On the rocket recovery fleet side of things, SpaceX’s fairing-catcher Mr Steven is still stationed at Berth 240 with all major components of his previous arm assembly now fully removed and stored nearby on the dock. In June 2018, CEO Elon Musk noted on Twitter that the iconic vessel was to have its net grown by a factor of four, meaning that both its length and width would be roughly doubled.
SpaceX’s Berth 240 prospective BFR factory is chock-full of construction equipment. (Pauline Acalin)
Mr Steven is also present, albeit in a sadly armless state for the time being. (Pauline Acalin)
Sitting around 400 square meters before arm removal, the new net would be closer to 1500 square meters – roughly 1.5 acres – and could nearly halve the accuracy gap that the company’s engineers need to close in order to reliably catch Falcon payload fairings, cutting 20-30 meters out of the 50 meters most separating the fairing and net at touchdown. Once SpaceX is able to close that gap and start catching fairings before they hit seawater, it should be a fairly simple process to start routinely reusing both halves of the $3 million carbon composite-aluminum honeycomb shells.
Unless they can be rapidly cycled out of the net after landing, recovering both halves may require a second net vessel like Mr Steven, and there could wind up being as many as four Mr Steven copies if the company intends to recovery both fairing halves after every launch from both their California and Florida launch pads. Recent planning on the Florida coast indicates that SpaceX expects their launch cadence to ramp up considerably with the introduction of a fleet of highly-reusable Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters, and the considerable lead-time and sluggishness inherent to manufacturing massive aerospace-grade composite structures with equally vast autoclave ovens means that payload fairings could quite quickly become a bottleneck for SpaceX’s launch business.
-
- SpaceX’s BFR tent and mandrel, caught on April 14th. (Pauline Acalin)
-
- Mr Steven out and about with a recovered but unreusable fairing half in May 2018, presumably for some sort of practice. (Pauline Acalin)
While such a bottleneck is far from insurmountable, dramatically expanding Falcon 9 composite component production now would presumably be an inconvenience for SpaceX at a time where they would much rather be focusing internal investments on their next-generation launch vehicle, known as BFR. That rocket is understood to be in the late stages of design and is quickly entering into a more advanced stage of concerted full-scale prototype testing and refinement as SpaceX accumulates invaluable data from hands-on R&D.
Follow us for live updates, peeks behind the scenes, and photos from Teslarati’s East and West Coast photographers.
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
-
Tom Cross – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
Tesla has started to deploy the 2026 Summer Update to owners across its fleet, and among the biggest changes are improvements to Navigation, a new startup animation for the Model 3 and Model Y, Caraoke scoring, and new capabilities for Grok.
As the update has started making its way to some cars, we can now see a few of the features operating in real-time. We will show you what some of the new features look like in this article, along with some additional details on what changed.
Not all of the new features in the 2026 Summer Update have quite made an appearance, but some of them have, so we’ll show those here:
New Animation Screen for 3/Y
Tesla is rolling out a new startup animation for Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners. This is present in Launch Edition and Performance Model 3 and Model Y, but other trim levels do not have anything like this.
The new animation screen on Model 3/Y with the 2026 Summer Update
Apparently color will also be customizable: pic.twitter.com/wSdwggtG3S
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 27, 2026
-
Owners can adjust the color associated with the startup animation to suit their preferences. It is a surprise that more automakers do not focus on this animation for their vehicles; it can be a great first impression piece and make the car immediately feel more luxurious.
Tesla has included this on more premium trims, but it is nice to see it on the Model 3 and Model Y.
Grok Improvements
Grok can now adjust more things in the car outside of the Navigation system. Now, drivers can adjust anything from climate to driving settings by simply speaking to the AI assistant in the car:
@Tesla‘s AI assistant (Grok) with its new vehicle commands in action.
Set the climate, your destination and vehicle settings all in one go! pic.twitter.com/0bBTqaAk6G
— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) July 28, 2026
You don’t even have to push a button, either. Instead, you can just say “Hey, Grok,” if you have it enabled. That feature rolled out with the 2026 Spring Update just a few months back.
-
This is a great feature, especially pertinent for the Robotaxi platform, as there will be no buttons inside the Cybercab when it eventually starts giving rides to the public. It also broadens Grok’s capabilities, which were relatively limited in terms of vehicle setting adjustments beforehand.
Tesla briefly offered one Robotaxi part in its Parts Catalog for your personal car, only to remove it just a short time after it was first noticed.
Tesla’s Robotaxi camera washer apparatus was briefly available for purchase on the company’s Online Parts Catalog. The camera washer was first noticed on Model Y Robotaxi vehicles about six months ago in Austin.
🚨 Tesla looks to have installed Camera Washers on the side repeater cameras on Robotaxis in Austin
pic.twitter.com/xemRtDtlRR— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
First noticed by Not a Tesla App, the Camera Washer entries appeared for the new “Juniper” Model Y under a category called “Halo,” which has also now disappeared. Interestingly, Halo probably is related to Tesla’s internal “Project Halo,” which was a project that aimed to retrofit customer-owned Model Ys into functional Robotaxis.
This hardware addition would likely be required for the vehicle to operate as a Robotaxi, as the Camera Washer seems to be a non-negotiable part of the vision-based system Tesla utilizes for self-driving efforts.
However, this part has since been removed and is no longer visible on the EPC.
-
Now the true question lingers: Why would Tesla add this Camera Washer to the Model Y parts catalog? Is it planning to make it available for owners to utilize on their own cars for personal use, or will it become a prerequisite for Robotaxi operation in customer-owned cars?
While discussing the upgrade options for Hardware 3 vehicles during the Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said that the company could establish small, satellite shops that would upgrade cameras and self-driving computers. Perhaps this same strategy could be utilized for vehicles that want to be included in Robotaxi but do not have the correct hardware.
AI4 is currently represented as capable of unsupervised self-driving, and the same was said about HW3 at one point, only for Tesla to admit last quarter that it would, unfortunately, not be possible. Perhaps AI4 vehicles might need this camera washer as a prerequisite, just as HW3 cars will need that camera and computer upgrade.
This could be the first hint of that’s where we are headed.
Tesla has started rolling out a broader change to the ride experience for its Robotaxi fleet by silencing turn signals, but the change is certainly polarizing.
Tesla has generally made it clear that its purpose-built ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi, will cater to the rider in nearly every way possible. This includes having climate preferences, music, and other personal settings loaded up in the car as the rider enters.
But Tesla is taking it a step further by muting turn signal chimes altogether, a change that appears to be a way to make the ride more peaceful:
Tesla has finally turned off the blinker/turn signal noises in their Model Y Robotaxis.
This is a small update, but will definitely be noticeable for riders. It didn’t really make much sense to leave the turn signal sound on when it’s Unsupervised. pic.twitter.com/ITwx60PAMO
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 27, 2026
However, there are a handful of people who are not thrilled about this change. Turn signals are a conditioned part of the human mind for those who ride in a car regularly.
-
Taking a turn without one feels strange and odd, and not hearing it click while activated could set off some alarms for riders, who might use the noise as confirmation that other drivers know of their intention to turn.
I kind of like it being on, threw me off when riding with Zoox who has had it disabled
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) July 27, 2026
Turn signal noises are still audible in customer cars, so if you use FSD in your personal vehicle, you will still hear the turn signal.
The move is certainly one that is unique, but not one that separates it from other ride-sharing services. In a normal car, the clicking sound confirms to the driver that the blinker is active. In a fully driverless Robotaxi, that feedback serves no purpose for passengers, other than peace of mind.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
Tesla briefly offered this Robotaxi part for your personal car
