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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reveals the heart of Starship’s Super Heavy booster
CEO Elon Musk has revealed the first glimpse of the most complex, important, and unproven part of Starship’s record-breaking Super Heavy booster.
Known as the engine section, the aft end of Super Heavy is likely where the fate of early booster prototypes will lie. For the most part, Super Heavy is just a colossal duo of steel propellant tanks that is – to an extent – even simpler than its smaller Starship upper stage, which needs two types of Raptor engines, flaps, a bevy of maneuvering thrusters, and more. However, at the booster’s base, SpaceX must design, fabricate, and assemble a nightmarishly crowded and complex mechanical structure capable of mounting, fueling, and powering anywhere from 29 to 33 Raptor engines.
Simultaneously, that structure and all associated plumbing must withstand the force and pressure of more than 2000 metric tons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and the 7500 tons (16.5 million lbf) of thrust those Raptors can generate. That’s just the bare minimum, though.
Beyond the extraordinary mechanical stress it must withstand, Super Heavy’s thrust section also needs to be able to survive the hellish, violent environment created by almost three dozen powerful rocket engines on one side while the structure is effectively half-submerged in a cryogenic fluid, subjecting the puck and dome to brutal thermal conditions. Last but certainly not least, the exterior of Super Heavy’s thrust structure must be able to survive the mechanical and thermal hell of hypersonic atmospheric reentry with zero cushioning of the blow.
The forces involved are difficult to imagine. At full thrust, Super Heavy Booster 4’s 29 Raptor engines (eventually expanding to 33 on future cores) will likely produce more than 5500 metric tons (12.1 million lbf) of thrust, making it both the largest and most powerful rocket booster ever built or tested. At full thrust, those 29 Raptors will consume more than 17 metric tons (~38,000 lb) of cryogenic liquid methane and oxygen – equivalent to around ten Tesla Model 3s worth of propellant – every single second.
Including smaller secondary runs for each Raptor engine, Super Heavy’s engine section will likely contain miles of plumbing for highly flammable, explosive, and high-pressure liquid and gaseous methane and oxygen. All 29 Raptors also need to be connected to Super Heavy’s power supplies and avionics systems, demanding still more miles of wiring.
Ultimately, Musk says that the next generation of Starship’s Raptor engine – “V2.0” – “is a major improvement in simplification,” presumably making life a bit easier for the engineers that have to design Super Heavy’s hellish engine section plumbing and the technicians that have to fabricate and assemble it. However, there’s just no getting around the fact that a single rocket booster with dozens of engines is going to have an extraordinarily complex thrust section. Only time will tell if SpaceX’s extensive launch vehicle expertise is up to the task.
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Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the vehicle being reported across social media this week.
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the autonomous two-seater being reported across social media this week. Based on videos of the vehicle that have been shared online, it appears that Cybercab tests are underway across multiple states.
Recent Cybercab sightings
Reports of Cybercab tests have ramped this week, with a vehicle that looked like a production-ready prototype being spotted at Apple’s Visitor Center in California. The vehicle in this sighting was interesting as it was equipped with a steering wheel. The vehicle also featured some changes to the design of its brake lights.
The Cybercab was also filmed testing at the Fremont factory’s test track, which also seemed to involve a vehicle that looked production-ready. This also seemed to be the case for a Cybercab that was spotted in Austin, Texas, which happened to be undergoing real-world tests. Overall, these sightings suggest that Cybercab testing is fully underway, and the vehicle is really moving towards production.
Production design all but finalized?
Recently, a near-production-ready Cybercab was showcased at Tesla’s Santana Row showroom in San Jose. The vehicle was equipped with frameless windows, dual windshield wipers, powered butterfly door struts, an extended front splitter, an updated lightbar, new wheel covers, and a license plate bracket. Interior updates include redesigned dash/door panels, refined seats with center cupholders, updated carpet, and what appeared to be improved legroom.
There seems to be a pretty good chance that the Cybercab’s design has been all but finalized, at least considering Elon Musk’s comments at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting. During the event, Musk confirmed that the vehicle will enter production around April 2026, and its production targets will be quite ambitious.
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Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Swedish union Vision has withdrawn its sympathy blockade against Tesla’s planned service center and showroom in Kalmar. As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Vision’s decision to pull the blockade
Vision announced the blockade in early December, stating that it was targeting the administrative handling of Tesla’s facility permits in Kalmar municipality. The sympathy measure was expected to start Monday, but was formally withdrawn via documents sent to the Mediation Institute and Kalmar Municipality last week.
As noted in a Daggers Arbete report, plans for the strike were ultimately pulled after employer group SKR highlighted potential illegality under the Public Employment Act. Vision stressed its continued backing for the Swedish labor model, though Deputy negotiation manager Oskar Pettersson explained that the Vision union and IF Metall made the decision to cancel the planned strike together.
“We will not continue to challenge the regulations,” Petterson said. “The objection was of a technical nature. We made the assessment together with IF Metall that we were not in a position to challenge the legal assessment of whether we could take this particular action against Tesla. Therefore, we chose to revoke the notice itself.”
The SKR’s warning
Petterson also stated that SKR’s technical objection to the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla strike framed the protest as an unauthorized act. “It was a legal assessment of the situation. Both for us and for IF Metall, it is important to be clear that we stand for the Swedish model. But we should not continue to challenge the regulations and risk getting judgments that lead nowhere in the application of the regulations,” he said.
Vision ultimately canceled its planned blockade against Tesla on December 9. With Vision’s withdrawal, few obstacles remain for Tesla’s long-planned Kalmar site. A foreign electrical firm completed work this fall, and Tesla’s Careers page currently lists a full-time service manager position based there, signaling an imminent opening.
Tesla Semi Program Director Dan Priestly teased the major improvements to the all-electric Class 8 truck on Thursday night, following the company’s decision to overhaul the design earlier this year.
Priestley said he drove the Semi on Thursday, and the improvements appear to be welcomed by one of the minds behind the project. “Our customers are going to love it,” he concluded.
Just drove the redesigned Semi. Our customers are going to love it. https://t.co/KZ88sf1CDL
— Dan Priestley (@danWpriestley) December 19, 2025
The small detail does not seem like much, but it is coming from someone who has been involved in the development of the truck from A to Z. Priestley has been involved in the Semi program since November 2015 and has slowly worked his way through the ranks, and currently stands as the Director of the program.
Tesla Semi undergoes major redesign as dedicated factory preps for deliveries
Tesla made some major changes to the Semi design as it announced at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting that it changed the look and design to welcome improvements in efficiency.
Initially, Tesla adopted the blade-like light bar for the Semi, similar to the one that is present on the Model Y Premium and the Cybertruck.
Additionally, there are some slight aesthetic changes to help with efficiency, including a redesigned bumper with improved aero channels, a smaller wraparound windshield, and a smoother roofline for better aero performance.
All of these changes came as the company’s Semi Factory, which is located on Gigafactory Nevada’s property, was finishing up construction in preparation for initial production phases, as Tesla is planning to ramp up manufacturing next year. CEO Elon Musk has said the Semi has attracted “ridiculous demand.”
The Semi has already gathered many large companies that have signed up to buy units, including Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., which have been helping Tesla test the vehicle in a pilot program to test range, efficiency, and other important metrics that will be a major selling point.
Tesla will be the Semi’s first user, though, and the truck will help solve some of the company’s logistics needs in the coming years.
Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
