

News
SpaceX Mars rocket test site receives first huge rocket propellant storage tank
SpaceX has delivered one of the first undeniably rocketry-related pieces of hardware to its prospective Boca Chica test and launch facility in South Texas, this time in the form of a massive 100,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank now stationed adjacent to the company’s ~600 kW Tesla solar and battery array.
In a statement provided to local paper Valley Morning Star, SpaceX spokesperson Sean Pitt filled in a few of the details and confirmed that the LOX tank had been delivered to Boca Chica as part of an ongoing effort to ready the site for initial testing – and eventually launches – of an unspecified “vehicle”
“Delivery of a new liquid oxygen tank, which will be used to support propellant-loading operations during launch and vehicle tests, represents the latest major piece of launch hardware to arrive at the [South Texas] site for installation.” – SpaceX
The official SpaceX statement may not have explicitly stated that the aforementioned “vehicle” was something other than Falcon 9 or Heavy, but it can be all but guaranteed that the testing and launching described refers to the company’s next-generation Mars rocket, a completely reusable architecture known as BFR.
An immense liquid oxygen (LOX) tank just arrived at @SpaceX's prospective Boca Chica, TX facility, likely to be dedicated to BFR & BFS testing. @NASASpaceflight forum user "Nomadd" caught some of the first detailed photos, as well as the tank's arrival at SpaceX land on July 11. pic.twitter.com/hr7SeA6BGw
— Eric Ralph (@13ericralph31) July 12, 2018
A slow burn in South Texas
Over the past 6-9 months, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President/COO Gwynne Shotwell have repeatedly spoken on the subject of SpaceX’s South Texas ambitions, lending unambiguous credence to the idea that the Boca Chica rocket facility will be almost exclusively dedicated to testing BFR’s first flightworthy spaceship prototypes, beginning with a series of familiar suborbital “hops”.
- Artist David Romax’s jaw-dropping rendition of a BFR burning to Mars orbit. The craft’s various curves and hull complexities will likely rely on cutting-edge composite joining tech to function. (Gravitation Innovation)
- SpaceX may well already be fabricating propellant tanks and structural components for the first Mars spaceship prototype in a giant tent at Port of San Pedro. July 1st. (Pauline Acalin)
- An overview of SpaceX’s Port of LA tent, April 2018. While not confirmed, SpaceX seems to intend to begin early BFR prototype construction at the temporary facility. (Pauline Acalin)
In the early days of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 reusability program, the company completed several different phases of short flights (“hops”, hence the Grasshopper label) of a development version of a Falcon 9 booster, ranging from purely vertical jaunts just above the pad to 1000+ meter cross-range maneuvers, tests that ultimately culminated in SpaceX’s extraordinarily reliable Falcon 9 and Heavy booster recovery capabilities. Something similar – albeit somewhat more ambitious – is planned for BFR, starting with a prototype of the upper stage (spaceship). Musk described these plans in more detail in an October 2017 Reddit AMA:
Will we see BFS hops or smaller test vehicles similar to Grasshopper/F9R-Dev?
A (Elon): A lot. Will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance. Those are fairly easy on the vehicle, as no heat shield is needed, we can have a large amount of reserve propellant and don’t need the high area ratio, deep space Raptor engines.
Speaking a bit less than five months later after the stunningly successful debut of Falcon Heavy, Musk expanded further on the BFR test program, reiterating that spaceship hop testing would “most likely … happen at our Brownsville [South Texas] location,” perhaps as early as 2019.
“We’ll do flights of increasing complexity. We really want to test the heat shield material… like fly out, turn around, accelerate back real hard, and come in hot to test the heat shield.”
- Blue Origin’s New Glenn LOX and liquid methane (LNG) propellant tanks, looking suspiciously identical to the SpaceX tank that just arrived in Boca Chica. It’s likely that both companies are using the same contractor. (Blue Origin)
- Captured by NASASpaceflight user nomadd before it arrived in Boca Chica, the storage tank is clearly vacuum-insulated. (NASASpaceflight /u/nomadd)
- An immense liquid oxygen (LOX) tank arriving at SpaceX’s prospective Boca Chica BFR testing facility, July 11th. (NASASpaceflight.com /u/Nomadd)
Musk also noted that he expected the first full-up orbital launch with both the Booster (BFB) and Spaceship (BFS) could happen as soon as 2021 or 2022. Shotwell, on the other hand, stated in early 2018 and again more recently that she believed BFR could begin its first orbital test missions as early as 2020, an extraordinarily rare moment where the typically pragmatic executive appeared to be more confident than Musk, often lambasted for his reliably over-optimistic timelines. About a month later, Musk’s comments were much more closely aligned with Shotwell’s BFR timeline estimates, and he enthusiastically said that that spaceship hop tests would likely begin within the first half of 2019.
The unambiguous arrival of a rocket propellant storage tank – confirmed officially by SpaceX – strongly suggests that activity is about to seriously pick up speed in Boca Chica for the first time in a year and a half, paving the way for full-scale hop tests of the first Mars spaceship prototype perhaps less than a year from today. Stay tuned…
Follow us for live updates, peeks behind the scenes, and photos from Teslarati’s East and West Coast photographers.
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Elon Musk
Tesla mulls revamping $25k car, strange report claims

Tesla is reportedly mulling the potential revamp of its $25,000 vehicle project, a strange report claims.
It seems unlikely, especially since Tesla launched two new, more affordable models last week with the Model 3 and Model Y Standard trims.
However, a report from European media outlet 36kr claims Tesla has started to advance two vehicle projects, internally codenamed E41 and D50, in China.
People familiar with the matter reportedly told the outlet that “some design and verification reports of the new projects are inherited from the current Model Y and Model 3.”
Tesla axed one of the Model Y’s best features in ‘Standard’ trims: here’s why
These new simplified models would be priced between $5,000 and $5,500 cheaper than what the new ‘Standard’ trims cost. The report also claims that these vehicles would be launched only if the new ‘Standard’ models “fall short of sales expectations.”
$TSLA 🇺🇸 BREAKING 🚨 Tesla is reportedly restarting work on its NV91 and NV93 projects for models smaller than the Model Y 💥
The NV91 project refers specifically to the $25,000 vehicle that CEO Elon Musk had mentioned, a model that was halted in Feb.2024 despite being… pic.twitter.com/L8TDvzmNwm
— Ming (@tslaming) October 14, 2025
This report suggests that potentially more affordable models are being offered, but this seems unlikely, considering Tesla launched the two Standard models just last week, and the only truly affordable model it is working on will be the Cybercab.
However, there is potential for a car to launch that undercuts the newest configurations of the Model 3 and Model Y. As of now, it just seems as if it is something that is far-fetched.
When Tesla’s patent for the unboxed process was published just last month, it seemed more than obvious that the vehicle it would be used for was the Cybercab.
The language used in the patent itself was geared toward more streamlined and quality production and manufacturing, which Tesla must implement to meet the likely demand for the vehicle.
It will be easier to scale vehicles with the unboxed process, and the Cybercab has been routinely mentioned with the sub-$30,000 price tag, even by CEO Elon Musk.
He said during the Q3 2024 Earnings Call:
“I think having a regular 25K model is pointless. It would be silly. Like it would be completely at odds with what we believe…It’s fully considered cost per mile is what matters. And if you try to make a car that is essentially a hybrid, manual, or automatic car, it’s not going to be as good as a dedicated autonomous car. So, yes, Cybercab is just not going to have steering wheels and pedals.”
Elon Musk
SpaceX aces Starship’s 11th launch with success in every mission objective

SpaceX aces its eleventh Starship test launch on Monday evening, marking the company’s second consecutive takeoff that crossed off each of the planned mission objectives.
It was also the final launch of the V2 Starship rocket. The twelfth test flight will feature the larger V3 Starship rocket, followed by V4, which will eventually make the first trip to Mars.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. In its 12th test flight, SpaceX was able to achieve every major mission objective, including the second successful deployment of Starlink satellite simulators and the relight of a Raptor engine while in space. The latter achievement demonstrated “a critical capability for future deorbit burns,” the company said.
The ship officially launched at 6:23 p.m. local time in Starbase, Texas, with all 33 engines igniting and sending the Ship to space.
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/sbfmGAEPa6
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2025
Stage separation occurred just over eight minutes later, and Super Heavy started its descent back to the Gulf of America, where it successfully splashed down. The first part of the launch was complete.
Starlink simulators were deployed about twenty-one minutes after launch, as the Pez dispenser sent the faux-satellites out to space without any issue:
Starship has successfully deployed our @Starlink simulators pic.twitter.com/muNMalZkbT
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2025
Perhaps the most anticipated part of the launch was with Starship’s banking maneuver and subsequent splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Prior to Starship 11’s launch and successful re-entry and splashdown, SpaceX had lost a few vehicles during this portion of the previous flights.
However, the company had made tremendous improvements and has now aced two consecutive launches. On Monday, its approach and splashdown were both overwhelmingly successful:
Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting eleventh flight test of Starship! pic.twitter.com/llcIvNZFfg
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 14, 2025
The re-entry phase of this particular Starship launch aimed to gather data on the performance of the heatshield, SpaceX said. The heatshield was intentionally stressed to its limits to determine how much it could withstand without failing.
SpaceX will now turn its focus to the next vehicles, including V3, which is larger, more capable, and will help the company gather even more information about its launches into space:
SpaceX unveils Starship V3, the rocket built to finally reach MARS
The new design features Raptor 3 engines and massive grid fins
Musk says it’s leaner, meaner, and READY for Mars pic.twitter.com/Wj8fBuXPIa
— RT (@RT_com) October 14, 2025
CEO Elon Musk has said the third-generation Starship rocket will be built and tested by the end of the year.
News
Tesla launches new color from Gigafactory Berlin

Tesla has launched a new color at Gigafactory Berlin in Germany, home of the company’s “world-class paint shop,” as Elon Musk once called it.
Bringing a new color to Tesla’s Model Y, there are now five available colors for those who will receive a vehicle from Gigafactory Berlin, with four of them being colors offered in other markets.
However, there is now one distinct color that is only available in Germany: Marine Blue.
🚨 Tesla has launched “Marine Blue” in select European countries
It is the third shade of blue Giga Berlin produces. It costs $1,500 pic.twitter.com/pVDWdNeBSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 10, 2025
Priced at €1,300, Marine Blue will cost the same as both Diamond Black and Stealth Grey, while Quicksilver and Ultra Red are available for double the price.
It is the third shade of blue Tesla offers across its lineup, as Deep Metallic Blue and Glacier Blue are also offered, but in other markets.
Tesla has routinely flexed Giga Berlin for having the most advanced paint shop throughout its factories, and it has produced some interesting colors over the past few years, some of which were truly awesome.
Tesla Giga Berlin is getting a world-class paint shop, new color ‘layers’ to come
In 2020, Musk said, “Giga Berlin will have the world’s most advanced paint shop, with more layers of stunning colors that subtly change with curvature.”
He also detailed the company’s plans to upgrade the Fremont and Shanghai paint shops. Gigafactory Texas was not yet unveiled. Tesla has worked to improve those facilities, especially in Fremont.
It was able to roll out the new Diamond Black color earlier this year.
However, Giga Berlin seems to remain the standard in terms of paint for Tesla. It routinely offers new colors.
For example, back in 2022, Tesla rolled out its familiar Quicksilver color for the Model Y, while also introducing Midnight Cherry Red, a color close to burgundy. However, the company chose to discontinue the color after determining internally that customers no longer wanted to buy it.
Midnight Cherry Red was removed as an option earlier this year, likely to make way for the development of the new Marine Blue.
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