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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says Starhopper’s first hover test is scheduled early next week
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter that Starhopper’s first untethered hover tests – flying as high as ~20 meters (65 ft) – could be attempted as early as Tuesday, July 16th.
SpaceX engineers and technicians have been working around the clock the last several months to prepare Starhopper for flight and – even more importantly – prepare the company’s next-gen Raptor engine to ensure it is reliable enough to risk losing the Hopper in flight. Neither task is a small challenge, with both pushing SpaceX’s workforce into new and (partially) unfamiliar territory, ranging from Starhopper’s use of steel propellant tanks to Raptor’s adoption of liquid methane and oxygen instead of the kerosene/oxygen or hydrazine SpaceX’s workforce is familiar with
Back in April 2019, SpaceX – having installed Raptor SN02 roughly two weeks prior – static fired Starhopper for the first time ever, simultaneously lifting the massive craft a few inches off the ground as it strained against its tethers. Three and a half months later, SpaceX engineers appear to have finally solved a mechanical resonance (vibration) issue that plagued all Raptors that came before SN06, forcing aborts, limiting test length, and even destroying or damaging engines beyond repair.
As previously discussed on Teslarati, Starhopper’s first true flight tests have been a long time coming. 9m (30 ft) in diameter and perhaps 25m (80 ft) tall, Starhopper is an extremely unusual and visually bizarre test article, effectively acting like a (vaguely) mobile Raptor test stand and a full-fidelity way for SpaceX’s aluminum-focused welding and fabrication crews to gain experience building a moderately functional stainless steel rocket.
Last month, there was some hope that Raptor SN05 would be capable of supporting Starhopper’s first hover tests as early as mid-to-late June, but it’s understood that the vibrational issue described above by Musk damaged the engine during one of its final acceptance tests, delaying Starhopper testing by several weeks. Had that resonance issue been solved months ago, it’s probable that Raptor SN02 could have taken Starhopper directly from its first static fires to untethered flight operations in April.
According to CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX’s Raptor manufacturing team is rapidly moving from a development-focused line to something more like mass-production. Once the design has been more thoroughly pinned down, the production ramp could max out with up to two Raptor engines completed daily, averaging out to an annual production rate of an incredible ~500 engines.
Additionally, Musk tacitly acknowledged that SpaceX’s recent development Raptors likely cost around $2M apiece, but the final mass-production cost could drop as low as $200,000 per engine, almost unfathomable for such a high-performance, cutting-edge engine.
For the time being, SpaceX will be focused on wringing out any subtler design flaws and general bugs in Raptor as the engines are gradually produced and tested at increasing volumes. This includes hop/hover tests like those Starhopper is scheduled to attempt next Tuesday, as well as even wilder ~20-km suborbital flight tests that could come once one or both of SpaceX’s “orbital” Starship prototypes are fully integrated.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
