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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk talks Starship explosion: “We were too dumb”
Two days after a last-second failure caused Starship SN9 to smash into the ground and explode, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has returned to Twitter with some harsh preliminary reactions.
Right off the bat, in response to a question about why Starships SN8 and SN9 both attempted their unsuccessful landings with only two of three available Raptor engines, Musk frankly stated that “we were too dumb.” At face value, it’s a decent question, given that there are no obvious showstoppers to explain why Starships couldn’t make the most of the redundancy their three Raptor engines can offer.
After completing an otherwise flawless 6.5 minutes launch, ascent, and belly-flop descent, Starship SN9 began a critical ~120-degree flip maneuver, sequentially igniting two Raptor engines and using that thrust to flip from a belly-down attitude to a tail-first landing configuration. Unfortunately, though the first Raptor did fire up and put in a good effort, the second engine failed to ignite, leaving the building-sized rocket to impact the ground traveling far too quickly.
Ironically, more than three years ago, Musk himself revealed in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread that he and his engineers had decided to modify Starship’s (then known as BFS) design by adding a third Raptor to its central cluster of two engines.
“Btw, we modified the [Starship] design since IAC [2017] to add a third medium-area-ratio Raptor engine partly for that reason (lose only 1/3 thrust in engine out) and allow landings with higher payload mass for the Earth to Earth transport function.”
Elon Musk – Reddit AMA – October 2017
Primarily meant to enable more efficient landings in Earth’s atmosphere, adding a third engine to that cluster would logically increase the chances of a successful (or at least survivable) landing in the event that one engine fails. Greater thrust and an improved thrust-to-weight ratio both during launch and landing would fundamentally improve the efficiency of Starship, likely making up for most or all of the added weight.
In retrospect, it’s not entirely surprising to learn that a three-engine landing burn is probably the most logical option if three landing-class engines have been included in the design. In SpaceX and Musk’s defense, however, there are also several good reasons to use as few Raptor engines as possible.
It was foolish of us not to start 3 engines & immediately shut down 1, as 2 are needed to land— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021
Throttling high-performance rocket engines is exceptionally difficult and Raptor is not yet a fully mature engine, meaning that it’s throttle capabilities are likely less than optimal. That’s relevant because the higher a rocket’s thrust-to-weight ratio during landing, the more aggressive its landings have to be. SpaceX is apparently extremely conservative with Starship in this regard, prioritizing slow, gentle landings by only using two of three available engines.
Ironically, it’s possible that that attempt at risk reduction resulted in harder landings for both Starship SN8 and SN9, as three-engine landing burns could have potentially slowed them down significantly more before impact.
At the same time, though it may have mitigated the severity of both landing failures, three-engine landing burns would not have resolved the fundamental issues that caused them. In SN8’s case, low fuel header tank pressure doomed the Starship, while SN9 is more ambiguous. Aside from the clear Raptor ignition failure, which a three-engine burn could have resolved by downselecting to two healthier engines, the one Raptor that did ignite appeared to suffer some kind of uncontained failure seconds before landing.
Impressively, despite that apparent combustion chamber or preburner failure, the engine’s landing burn seemed to continued uninterrupted until the moment of impact. As such, it’s hard to say if that lone Raptor was still producing substantial thrust or if it was in the throes of a catastrophic failure. If it could have held on for another 5-10 seconds and the third Raptor (the engine that didn’t reignite) was able to restart and perform without issue, a three-engine landing burn could have easily made SN9’s demise less violent or even have enabled a soft landing.
While a three-engine burn all the way to touchdown appears to be extremely risky or impossible for present-day Starships, Musk implied that there was nothing preventing SpaceX from reigniting all three engines during the initial flip and landing burn and using that time to determine the health of all three engines. If all three were healthy, Starship would shut down one for a soft landing. If one engine failed to restart or lost thrust shortly after ignition, the other two would already be active and able to take over.
Musk says that Starship SN10, already at the launch pad and likely days away from its first tests, will attempt to adopt that approach on an upcoming test flight expected as few as 2-3 weeks from now.
Tesla has opened a new sweepstakes to allow the public to be among the first to take an initial ride in a Cybercab. This all-electric, steering-wheel-less, pedal-less vehicle is the centerpiece of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi.
There are two ways Tesla fans can get to Austin to take part in the first public rides of the Cybercab: by riding on the Robotaxi platform by August 23, or by mailing a very specific entry to their Headquarters at Gigafactory Texas.
Tesla announced the latter portion of the sweepstakes last night:
🚨 Want to win a trip to Austin to ride in one of the first Cybercab rides ever?
Here’s how:
Tesla has opened up a new sweepstakes to ride in a Cybercab upon its public launch. Here’s the details.
There are two methods of entry into the sweepstakes, and they are as follows:… pic.twitter.com/iJRd4evuWo
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 19, 2026
Tesla will give one entry into the sweepstakes if you mail a 3″ by 5″ piece of paper with your full name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, and date of birth to their address:
Tesla, Robotaxi Sweeps Event
1 Tesla Road,
Austin, TX 78725
There is a limit of one entry per stamped envelope. You can send as many as you’d like, but they must be in separate envelopes.
The company’s unique strategy to give people the opportunity to ride in a Cybercab before pretty much anyone else outside of the company is a hilarious but spot-on representation of how Tesla operates. In classic fashion, they had the perfect response to the event:
— Tesla (@Tesla) August 19, 2026
Cybercab will launch later this month, it appears, especially as it plans to announce the winners of the sweepstakes on August 25. The car has already been operating internally, as employees have been able to utilize the Cybercab for rides in some capacity, something it announced earlier this month.
Tesla weirdly confirms Cybercab employee rides, a huge milestone
Moving forward, the big goal is to get Cybercab out on the roads and integrated into the public Robotaxi fleet, one that will pick up real-world ride-hailers and give them a ride from Point A to Point B.
No matter which way you cut it, it appears Tesla is close to putting a vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals on the road to help people travel autonomously.
You can ride along with us in our first Cybercab ride from the We, Robot event in October 2024. The video is embedded below:
🎥: Our FULL first ride in the @Tesla Cybercab pic.twitter.com/6gR7OgKRCz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
Tesla has revealed plans through permit submissions for a massive Robotaxi charging hub in Austin, Texas.
Tesla plans to build the Supercharger hub in multiple phases, with the second phase potentially introducing wireless induction charging, something the company has been developing for the Robotaxi fleet.
Initially, 48 Tesla Robotaxi-geared Superchargers will be built on a lot just across from the St. Elmo, Texas, Service Center. There are about 80 additional spots that will not be impacted by phase 1 of the construction process.
Filings show that the second phase of the project will turn those 80 additional spots into wireless charging for Robotaxi, but it might be an error. The Key Notes state that item 3 is listed as “V4 Charging Cabinet to Support 80 Wireless Chargers in Phase 2. However, the drawings point to V3 Cabinets that are already tied to Superchargers:
There are roughly 128 total spots in the lot, but it is unclear if they will all be used for charging based on what appears to be some sort of typo in the blueprint.
A new Robotaxi fleet charging hub is coming soon to Austin, Texas!!
Permits have been filed for the installation of 48 (V3) stalls in a vehicle storage lot across the road from Tesla’s St Elmo service center. pic.twitter.com/xwRgSWDqht
— MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1) August 18, 2026
This is among the first Robotaxi charging hubs Tesla has started to develop, as it currently has four others planned throughout various areas: one in Phoenix, one in San Antonio, another in Irving, which will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and another in Las Vegas.
These projects are necessary as Tesla expands its Robotaxi program. Now that preparations have started for the public launch of Cybercab, Robotaxi will likely be expanding aggressively, especially over the next two to three years.
Last night, The Information reported that Tesla was planning to launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Hours later, Tesla then announced it was launching a competition for fans to potentially ride in Cybercab during its first public rides.
Tesla’s plan to expand its charging infrastructure in the regions where Robotaxi will initially operate is great preparation for the expanding service. There is still a lot to do, including launching the Cybercab on time.
Tesla got its largest order for the all-electric Class 8 Semi yet, a 500-unit order from Einride AB, a Swedish trucking company.
Einride made the announcement this morning following its second-quarter earnings call. The company said it plans to use 500 Tesla Semi units on its fleet intelligence platform, called Saga AI. The deployments will serve large companies like Amazon and will extend Einride’s electric freight network across logistics routes in California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia.
🚨 Tesla has received a MASSIVE order from Swedish freight company Einride AB, which placed an order for 500 Tesla Semi trucks
Tesla’s biggest order for the Semi yet! pic.twitter.com/PrtLp5yzvh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 18, 2026
The deployment is being carried out in several phases over the next two years as Tesla ramps production of the Semi at its dedicated production facility in Sparks, Nevada. Einride will receive its first Semi units in September.
Saga AI
Saga AI is Einride’s dedicated fleet intelligence platform. It enables scaled adoption of electric trucks for freight use and allows shippers to integrate electric capacity without the operational burden or capital risks of managing a fleet. This helps integrate cost-efficient logistics and makes budgeting and forecasting much more accurate.
Tesla Semi’s Adoption
The Tesla Semi is now gathering large-scale clients past those who have helped the company operate a Pilot Program to gain initial information and feedback from real-world drivers.
Perhaps the biggest and most notable is that of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., who have worked with Tesla for the past several years to dial in the finer details of the truck, including its efficiency and operation-related components.
Tesla Semi gets strange-but-understandable comparison from Jay Leno
There has been tremendous progress in that time, and it even catalyzed Tesla to make some design changes, which were unveiled earlier this year.
But Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli says his company’s partnership with Tesla will continue to push those things forward:
“This deployment is yet another proof point that we can execute at the scale our customers demand. Working closely with Tesla to bring next-generation Semis into active operations quickly and at scale is a testament to the strength of that partnership, and how quickly this technology is maturing from promise to daily operations.”
Additionally, Dan Priestley, the Director of the Semi Program at Tesla, said the partnership is ideal due to Einride’s focus on sustainable transport:
“Einride is at the forefront of sustainable freight, and we are thrilled to deepen our relationship with them through this order of 500 Semis. EV heavy trucks provide lower costs per mile from fuel savings, reduced maintenance, and better uptime over diesel trucks. These savings increase further through operational efficiency when deploying EV trucks at scale, and we are excited that Einride recognizes this and look forward to supporting their deployments.”
Tesla is opening Cybercab rides to a select few
Tesla reveals plans for Robotaxi charging hub in Austin
