News
SpaceX drone ship completes 5000-mile journey from Florida to California
A bit less than four weeks after departing Central Florida’s Port Canaveral, SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) has completed a more than 5000-mile (~8000 km) journey to Port of Long Beach, California.
Around midnight on June 10th, the oldest operational ‘autonomous spaceport drone ship’ (ASDS) was towed out of the closest port to Cape Canaveral, where two SpaceX-leased pads support the vast majority of all Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. Around 12 months before OCISLY’s departure, drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) joined it on the East Coast with its first Atlantic Ocean booster recovery some ten months after the opposite journey – California to Florida.
Thanks in no small part to the presence of two operational drone ships stationed in Port Canaveral, SpaceX completed 32 successful East Coast launches and recovered 31 boosters at sea in those 12 months. However, at least as early as April 2021, plans were already in motion to send one of those two drone ships west.
Likely because it’s the most aging member of SpaceX’s booster recovery fleet, drone ship OCISLY was chosen to head to California and support the start of a few dozen dedicated polar Starlink launches. Thanks to limitations with SpaceX’s even older Vandenberg Air/Space Force Base (VAFB) SLC-4E launch facilities, it’s unlikely that the drone ship will ever need support more than one booster recovery per month, compared to two or even three per month operating out of Port Canaveral.
While SpaceX’s East Coast launch operation now has just one drone ship to work with, that might not be the case for long. Late last month, a tugboat frequently used by SpaceX to tow drone ships OCISLY and JRTI departed Port Canaveral and arrived at Port Fourchon, Louisiana on June 27th. Finn Falgout will ultimately tow brand new drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) – currently in the late stages of assembly at a Fourchon shipyard – to its new home in Port Canaveral, restoring SpaceX’s East Coast booster recovery fleet to two ships.
ASOG’s trip east could happen at any point this month, albeit only after several days to a week of sea trials expected before the shipyard hands off the vessel to SpaceX. At the moment, no East Coast launches of any kind appear to have been scheduled in the first half of July, hinting at unavoidable downtime either for SpaceX alone or the entire Eastern Range. In other words, ASOG could arrive in time to avoid any direct impact on launch cadence that a single drone ship might have.
Still installed on the deck of transport ship Mighty Servant 1 (MS1), OCISLY will likely be offloaded – weather pending – later this week, after which SpaceX will be able to start the process of getting the drone ship ready for its first West Coast rocket recovery mission. That will likely take at least a week or two, potentially leaving OCISLY ready to support SpaceX’s first dedicated polar Starlink launch as early as late July. Simultaneously, it’s not inconceivable that drone ship ASOG will also be ready for its own rocket recovery debut around the same time, meaning that SpaceX could have three operational drone ships for the first time by next month.
Given SpaceX’s plans to quickly ramp up its VAFB facilities to support one launch per month and the impressive success of its East Coast pads in H1 2021, the company could feasibly complete another 21 or 22 launches between August and December.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
