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SpaceX executive talks rocket R&D: “Nobody paid us to make Falcon Heavy”
Set to give a keynote speech on October 3rd at 2018’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Hans Koenigsmann – SpaceX Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability – attended an impromptu talk one day prior, titled “From the University of Bremen to SpaceX”.
Speaking before a small audience, the University of Bremen graduate and fourth employee to join SpaceX discussed his opinions of Falcon Heavy, BFR, and more, frankly relating how SpaceX intentionally chose to build Falcon Heavy on its own, going so far as to turn down funding reportedly offered by one or more US government agencies.
From Bremen to SpaceX (to Bremen)
Hopefully a sign of things to come for his 09:20 UTC, Oct. 3 keynote, titled “Reusability: The Key to Reliability and Affordability”, Hans’ precursor talk centered around the circuitous path that led him from University of Bremen to SpaceX, humorously describing how he “got bored of airplanes pretty quickly” after becoming an aerospace engineer. He quickly turned to space, hopping between a number of German smallsat projects that eventually led him to settle in the U.S. after flying there and back “at least 25 times”.
Once in the US, he wound up working at spaceflight startup Microcosm – alongside now-president and COO of SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell – for several years before running into Elon Musk and almost immediately accepting the eccentric entrepreneur’s SpaceX job offer in 2002. He has worked for SpaceX ever since and now spends a majority of his time managing and overseeing its BFR, Block 5, and Crew Dragon programs with a focus on systematically ensuring reliability. He touched on the company’s BFR development program and pointed to the fabrication of massive composite structures as the single most pressing challenge facing SpaceX engineers and technicians.
Asked by an audience member about the apparent difficulty of developing the heat-shield segment of BFR’s spaceship upper stage (BFS), Koenigsmann was quite confident that it would be a relatively easy aspect of the craft’s development, making the argument that what really matters to the craft is overall heat transfer per unit of its shield. From a basic comparison of the area of a given heat shield and the spacecraft’s mass at reentry, his lack of concern is probably warranted – a BFR spaceship’s worst-case LEO reentry is likely to be less stressful than an average Space Shuttle reentry.
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- BFS bares its belly in a 360 degree animation. (SpaceX)
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- Space Shuttle Endeavor shows off its main heat shield during an on-orbit inspection in August 2007. (NASA)
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- A slightly broader overview of BFS just after separating from the booster. Note notches along the shield/skin divide, as well as very specific access panels, hatches, and smaller protuberances. (SpaceX)
“Try [to not] get money from the government”
Perhaps most intriguing of all Koenigsmann’s comments was an almost unprovoked segue into the US government’s involvement in Falcon Heavy development. According to the SpaceX executive, the company was actually approached by “the government”, with the unknown agency or agencies stating – in Hans’ words – that they wanted to be a part of the rocket’s development. According to Hans, SpaceX responded in an extremely unorthodox fashion: “we said, ‘Nope! We just wanna build it, you can buy it when it’s ready and we’ll charge you for the service.’” He noted in the next sentence that funding was the primary lever on the table:
“It’s a great position to do this, you gotta find the money, you gotta know people that have money and are willing to invest in your company, and [SpaceX has] been lucky enough to know some of those people.”
In other words, when given an opportunity to either rely on government funding or some other source of capital for a given R&D project, SpaceX – or at least Hans Koenigsmann, VP of Reliability – would apparently recommend the latter option in almost all cases. Again, without being prompted, he elaborated on his feelings about funding sources, culminating in a statement that is simply profound coming from an executive in the aerospace industry. The following quote is unabridged and straight from Hans himself:
“You need to [try to not] get money from the government, otherwise the government will tell you what to build and how to build it… they will tell you how to build this and that’s just not always – I mean for some things it’s the best to do, but in others it’s actually not.”
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- A concert of Draco thrusters work to push Dragon away from the ISS and back towards Earth. (ESA)
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- The first spaceworthy Crew Dragon capsule is already in Florida, preparing for its November 2018 launch debut. The same capsule will be refurbished and reflown as few as three months after recovery. (SpaceX)
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- It’s currently unclear whether B1046 or B1048 will become the first SpaceX rocket to fly three times. (Tom Cross)
This sentiment could suggest that SpaceX will seek to prioritize private funding sources for the development of future vehicles like BFR’s rocket and spaceship, although there is plenty of room for interpretation in Hans’ IAC 2018 comments. SpaceX currently maintains strong and productive relationships with both NASA and the USAF, primarily centered around the company’s $2.6B fixed-price contract for the development and operation of Crew Dragon.
Watch and listen to Hans Koenigsmann’s full presentation below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs2LBeLCo_s
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Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
Tesla Robotaxi services in Austin have been operating since last Summer, but Tesla has admittedly been delayed in its expansion of the geofence, fleet size, and other details in a bid to prioritize safety as new technology rolls out.
But those barriers are being broken with new guardrails being removed from the program.
Tesla has achieved a significant advancement in its autonomous ride-hailing program. As of May 4, the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, has begun operating unsupervised during evening hours for the first time. This expansion moves beyond previous limitations that restricted unsupervised service to daylight hours, typically ending in mid-afternoon.
Tesla Robotaxi in Austin is operating unsupervised in the evenings for the first time today.
Previously in Austin, unsupervised operation ended mid-afternoon
— Robotaxi Tracker (@RtaxiTracker) May 4, 2026
The change brings Austin in line with operations in Dallas and Houston. Those cities have supported evening unsupervised runs since their initial launches in April, and both recently received additions of new unsupervised vehicles to their fleets. This coordinated progress across Texas strengthens Tesla’s regional presence and provides a broader testing ground for the technology.
This milestone carries substantial weight in the development of autonomous vehicles. Extending operations into low-light conditions meaningfully expands the Robotaxi’s operational design domain (ODD)—the specific environments and scenarios in which the system is approved to operate safely without human intervention.
Nighttime driving presents unique technical demands: diminished visibility, headlight glare from oncoming traffic, reduced contrast for identifying pedestrians and lane markings, and greater variability in camera sensor exposure.
Tesla’s pure vision approach, powered by neural networks trained on vast real-world datasets rather than lidar or pre-mapped routes, must handle these variables reliably. Demonstrating consistent unsupervised performance after sunset validates the robustness of the end-to-end AI stack and its ability to generalize across diverse lighting conditions.
Beyond technical validation, the expansion holds important operational and economic implications. Evening hours often coincide with peak urban demand for rides, including commutes, dining, and entertainment outings.
Enabling service during these periods increases daily vehicle utilization, allowing each Robotaxi to generate more revenue while gathering additional high-value training data. Higher utilization accelerates the virtuous cycle of data collection, model improvement, and further ODD growth.
Looking ahead, this step paves the way for more ambitious rollouts. Success in low-light environments positions Tesla to pursue near-24-hour operations, potentially integrating highways and expanding into varied weather patterns. Regulators worldwide frequently demand evidence of safe performance across day-night cycles before granting wider approvals.
Proven capability in Texas could expedite deployments in planned cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas during the first half of 2026.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
Moreover, scaling evening service supports Tesla’s long-term vision of a high-efficiency robotaxi network. Greater fleet productivity lowers the cost per mile, making autonomous mobility more accessible and competitive against traditional ride-hailing.
As the company iterates on software updates informed by nighttime data, reliability is expected to compound rapidly, unlocking denser urban coverage and longer-distance trips.
In summary, the introduction of an unsupervised evening Robotaxi service in Austin represents more than an incremental schedule adjustment. It signals a critical maturation of the underlying technology and sets the foundation for broader geographic and temporal expansion.
With Texas operations gaining momentum, Tesla is steadily advancing toward transforming urban transportation at scale.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Tesla owners keep coming back for more
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
