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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says “overdue” Starship update is coming soon
CEO Elon Musk says he may finally present the first cohesive update on SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket development program in more than two years.
While Musk routinely makes Starship-focused appearances and comments in public or by webcast every 3-6 months, there is a certain brand of update – along the lines of a high-profile tech product reveal – that the SpaceX CEO has only presented four times since Starship’s predecessor was first revealed in September 2016. Accompanied by a relatively detailed slide deck, the four main updates he’s given have provided a large amount of background on the status of Starship development and a variety of next steps – ranging from near-term plans to targets still a decade or more in the future.
Musk has not provided an explicit Starship update in 2020 or 2021. Generally speaking, in the more minor events he’s semi-regularly attended over the last two years, the SpaceX CEO will give a brief overview (sometimes clearly prepared; sometimes not) to a miscellaneous audience that usually isn’t the most familiar with Starship, usually resulting in a great deal of tried and true broad-strokes talking points with a few new details mixed in. Finally, the audience – while undoubtedly well-meaning – asks a number of questions, the vast majority of which have already been asked and answered or could be with Google and a few minutes of basic research.
As with Musk’s (un)prepared remarks, there are usually a few gems of new information left to be found in the rough. The end result: the only true Starship updates are those organized by SpaceX itself with an informed audience and a thoroughly prepared presentation and talking points.
Put a slightly different way, SpaceX has yet to provide a 2016-2019-style Starship presentation since the company actually began building and testing prototypes that approach the final orbital-class ship and booster designs. In those two years, SpaceX has made a truly surreal amount of progress, more or less completing a new prototype every month and flying one of those prototypes every 3-4 months. Most recently, SpaceX completed and static fired a Super Heavy booster prototype, completed and repeatedly static fired the first orbital-class Starship prototype, finished two more Super Heavy boosters, and is on the verge of preparing one of those boosters for the first thorough Super Heavy qualification testing.
If things move in SpaceX’s favor, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could complete an environmental assessment later this month and approve a license for the first one or several orbital Starship launch attempts in early 2022. SpaceX has already begun rapidly building two more orbital-class Starship prototypes and will soon have as many as three ships and two boosters ready for proof testing and an imminent series of orbital test flights. After four successful static fires, one of which fired up all six Raptor engines for the first time, Starship S20 is effectively ready for flight whenever Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4) follows suit.
In short, there are a nearly limitless number of activities and plans that Musk could shed a great deal of light on in an official update presentation. Per Musk, the CEO wants to provide that update as early as December 2021 but no later than January 2022. It’s hard to say if he will actually follow through: more than a year ago, Musk promised a Starship update in October 2020, and that’s not the only time in the last two years that the CEO has stated that he’d present a new update soon. It’s possible that Musk is waiting on a specific Starbase hardware milestone before presenting his long-awaited update – perhaps the completion of Super Heavy B4 qualification testing or the next full-stack milestone, in which Starship S20 (now proofed and ready for flight) will be installed on top of the booster for the second time.
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.
News
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
