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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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The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.
However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.
🚨 Model Y L owners in China report rear suspension sag
• Six-seat long-wheelbase Y. Shanghai. On sale since August 2025
• Owners say the rear tire-to-arch gap shrinks after mileage or a full load. Some cases after about 9,000 km loaded. Others near 30,000 km
• Tesla service… pic.twitter.com/Lr6i5Tbi07— Joe Hansen (@joehansen) September 1, 2026
The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.
Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.
Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment
Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.
There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.
Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.
Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.
Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.
The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 2, 2026
The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.
However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.
No steering wheel, no pedals
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) September 2, 2026
Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.
Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.
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SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.
Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.
The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.
SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’
Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.
Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.
The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.
Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China
Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch
