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”.
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- 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)
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- 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)
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- 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.”
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- 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)
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- Captured by NASASpaceflight user nomadd before it arrived in Boca Chica, the storage tank is clearly vacuum-insulated. (NASASpaceflight /u/nomadd)
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- 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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News
Tesla lands approval for Robotaxi operation in third U.S. state
On Tuesday, Tesla officially received regulatory approval from the State of Arizona, making it the third state for the company to receive approval in.
Tesla has officially landed approval to operate its Robotaxi ride-hailing service in its third U.S. state, as it has landed a regulatory green light from the State of Arizona’s Department of Transportation.
Tesla has been working to expand to new U.S. states after launching in Texas and California earlier this year. Recently, it said it was hoping to land in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, expanding to five new cities in those three states.
On Tuesday, Tesla officially received regulatory approval from the State of Arizona, making it the third state for the company to receive approval in:
BREAKING: Tesla has officially received approval from the Arizona Department of Transportation to launch its Robotaxi service on public roads in the state!
I just confirmed directly with the Arizona DOT that @Tesla applied for a Transportation Network Company permit on Nov 13th.… pic.twitter.com/iKbwfGfiju
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 18, 2025
Tesla has also been working on approvals in Nevada and Florida, and it has also had Robotaxi test mules spotted in Pennsylvania.
The interesting thing about the Arizona approval is the fact that Tesla has not received an approval for any specific city; it appears that it can operate statewide. However, early on, Tesla will likely confine its operation to just one or two cities to keep things safe and controlled.
Over the past few months, Robotaxi mules have been spotted in portions of Phoenix and surrounding cities, such as Scottsdale, as the company has been attempting to cross off all the regulatory Ts that it is confronted with as it attempts to expand the ride-hailing service.
It appears the company will be operating it similarly to how it does in Texas, which differs from its California program. In Austin, there is no Safety Monitor in the driver’s seat, unless the route requires freeway travel. In California, there is always a Safety Monitor in the driver’s seat. However, this is unconfirmed.
Earlier today, Tesla enabled its Robotaxi app to be utilized for ride-hailing for anyone using the iOS platform.
News
Tesla ride-hailing Safety Monitor dozes off during Bay Area ride
We won’t try to blame the camera person for the incident, because it clearly is not their fault. But it seems somewhat interesting that they did not try to wake the driver up and potentially contact Tesla immediately to alert them of the situation.
A Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor appeared to doze off during a ride in the California Bay Area, almost ironically proving the need for autonomous vehicles.
The instance was captured on camera and posted to Reddit in the r/sanfrancisco subreddit by u/ohmichael. They wrote that they have used Tesla’s ride-hailing service in the Bay Area in the past and had pleasant experiences.
However, this one was slightly different. They wrote:
“I took a Tesla Robotaxi in SF just over a week ago. I have used the service a few times before and it has always been great. I actually felt safer than in a regular rideshare.
This time was different. The safety driver literally fell asleep at least three times during the ride. Each time the car’s pay attention safety alert went off and the beeping is what woke him back up.
I reported it through the app to the Robotaxi support team and told them I had videos, but I never got a response.
I held off on posting anything because I wanted to give Tesla a chance to respond privately. It has been more than a week now and this feels like a serious issue for other riders too.
Has anyone else seen this happen?”
My Tesla Robotaxi “safety” driver fell asleep
byu/ohmichael insanfrancisco
The driver eventually woke up after prompts from the vehicle, but it is pretty alarming to see someone like this while they’re ultimately responsible for what happens with the ride.
We won’t try to blame the camera person for the incident, because it clearly is not their fault. But it seems somewhat interesting that they did not try to wake the driver up and potentially contact Tesla immediately to alert them of the situation.
They should have probably left the vehicle immediately.
Tesla’s ride-hailing service in the Bay Area differs from the one that is currently active in Austin, Texas, due to local regulations. In Austin, there is no Safety Monitor in the driver’s seat unless the route requires the highway.
Tesla plans to remove the Safety Monitors in Austin by the end of the year.
Tesla has officially opened Robotaxi access to everyone and everyone, but there is one catch: you have to have an iPhone.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin and its ride-hailing service in the Bay Area were both officially launched to the public today, giving anyone using the iOS platform the ability to simply download the app and utilize it for a ride in either of those locations.
It has been in operation for several months: it launched in Austin in late June and in the Bay Area about a month later. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat unless the route takes you on the freeway.
In the Bay Area, there is someone in the driver’s seat at all times.
The platform was initially launched to those who were specifically invited to Austin to try it out.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi is heading to five new cities in the U.S.
Slowly, Tesla launched the platform to more people, hoping to expand the number of rides and get more valuable data on its performance in both regions to help local regulatory agencies relax some of the constraints that were placed on it.
Additionally, Tesla had its own in-house restrictions, like the presence of Safety Monitors in the vehicles. However, CEO Elon Musk has maintained that these monitors were present for safety reasons specifically, but revealed the plan was to remove them by the end of the year.
Now, Tesla is opening up Robotaxi to anyone who wants to try it, as many people reported today that they were able to access the app and immediately fetch a ride if they were in the area.
We also confirmed it ourselves, as it was shown that we could grab a ride in the Bay Area if we wanted to:
🚨 Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing Service in Austin and the Bay Area has opened up for anyone on iOS
Go download the app and, if you’re in the area, hail a ride from Robotaxi pic.twitter.com/1CgzG0xk1J
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 18, 2025
The launch of a more public Robotaxi network that allows anyone to access it seems to be a serious move of confidence by Tesla, as it is no longer confining the service to influencers who are handpicked by the company.
In the coming weeks, we expect Tesla to then rid these vehicles of the Safety Monitors as Musk predicted. If it can come through on that by the end of the year, the six-month period where Tesla went from launching Robotaxi to enabling driverless rides is incredibly impressive.
Tesla lands approval for Robotaxi operation in third U.S. state
Tesla ride-hailing Safety Monitor dozes off during Bay Area ride
