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SpaceX's California Starship factory plans detailed ahead of permitting decision
SpaceX’s California Starship factory plans have been detailed in new documents published by the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, one of the last big steps before a crucial permitting decision is made later this week.
First reported on February 1st, SpaceX has resurrected plans to build a Starship factory in Los Angeles, just 20 or so miles away from the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters. SpaceX abandoned its lease of Port of Los Angeles Berth 240 in the spring of 2019, a decision made a handful of months after the company dramatically scrapped plans to build its next-generation rocket out of carbon-fiber composites. Now known as Starship and Super Heavy and radically redesigned to use steel for 99% of its structural elements, SpaceX has been building prototypes of the Starship upper stage for more than 14 months.
That work has been performed almost exclusively at Boca Chica, Texas facilities that have been in an almost continuous period of gradual expansion and upgrades since late-2018. Situated a few miles from the Mexican border on the southernmost tip of Texas’ Gulf Coast, Boca Chica is an exceptional location for orbital launches from the continental United States but is less than optimal when it comes to build (and more importantly) staffing a high-quality rocket factory. Since Starship prototype fabrication and integration was shifted almost entirely to Texas, SpaceX has had to send expert Hawthorne-based employees to Boca Chica for weeks at a time, often hitching a ride on CEO Elon Musk’s private jet. With a dedicated Port of LA Starship factory, life could be made much easier, cheaper, and – ultimately – better for everyone involved.
While its growth has been undeniably gradual, SpaceX is in the late stages of building an impressive manufacturing base around its Boca Chica launch facilities. As of Tuesday, February 17th, company contractors have effectively completed the shells of two massive ‘sprung structures’ (tents) that are already being used to house certain Starship fabrication, assembly, and integration operations.
Nearby, a separate group is in the late stages of constructing the primary structure of a ~50m (160 ft) tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) with an even taller building also in the pipeline, both of which should allow Starship and Super Heavy stacking, welding, and outfitting to be done in a sheltered, partially climate-controlled environment. Additionally, SpaceX has delivered hardware needed to build a dedicated on-site waterjet shop, giving its Boca Chica outpost the ability to precisely fabricate its own metal parts.
According to SpaceX’s updated 2020 Port of Los Angeles regulatory documents, the company has major ambitions for its resurrected California Starship factory. In simple terms, it really does want to build a true Starship factory instead of something smaller or more specialized. Specifically, SpaceX wants Berth 240 to be able to independently form Starship’s steel rings, stack and weld those rings together, outfit integrated barrel sections with all necessary access ports, plumbing, and flight-related hardware, and build any number of other Starship parts (likely fins, legs, noses, etc.).
This time around, SpaceX would refurbish and reuse five aging structures already present at Berth 240, avoiding the potential hassle, delays, and cost of building an entirely new factory (as was previously the plan). It’s likely that SpaceX would eventually erect similar sprung structures on Berth 240’s empty lot, and it looks like the modified permit applications would even allow the company to build the same factory it previously proposed in addition to the new plans to reuse existing structures.
Although reusing abandoned buildings built a century ago will almost bring its own challenges, SpaceX’s tweaked approach does make it likelier (even if still improbable) that the company will be able to realize its ambitious goal of kicking off Berth 240 Starship production just a month or two from now. While not discussed in the permit, SpaceX’s new plans would presumably also involve shipping fully-completed Starship subsections (meaning just a few stacked steel rings at a time) from California to Texas, where Boca Chica workers would ultimately integrate those segments to form finished ships and boosters that can then be acceptance-tested and launched.
For now, though, SpaceX still has to reacquire its old Berth 240 lease and environmental permits before it can begin repairing existing structures and building out its prospective Port of LA rocket factory. Up next, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission will meet on Thursday, February 20th to hear several permit appeals, SpaceX’s included.
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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.
Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.
It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.
“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.
As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.
SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.
The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.
The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.
The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.
Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.
EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.
EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.
We’ve opened our first EVgo Supercharger location in Illinois, marking the start of our plan to add hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the U.S.
Designed for both NACS and CCS vehicles with Magic Dock technology, these new sites help make fast charging more accessible and convenient for all EV drivers. Learn more: https://t.co/V92t5FDryQ
— EVgo Fast Charging Network (@evgonetwork) November 5, 2026
The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.
The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.
Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.
Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.
The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
