Connect with us

News

SpaceX fires up Falcon 9 rocket for first California Starlink launch

Published

on

SpaceX says it has successfully static fired the Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to support its first California launch in ten months and first dedicated West Coast Starlink mission ever.

Falcon 9 last used SpaceX’s Vandenberg Air/Space Force Base (VAFB) SLC-4 facilities in November 2020 when it successfully launched NASA and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 6A Earth observation satellite – itself the company’s first West Coast launch in 16 months. Somewhat confusingly known as Starlink 2-1, SpaceX’s next West Coast launch is again set to end a significant hiatus – around ten months this time around.

However, barring surprises, Starlink 2-1 is also expected to mark the start of a new golden age for West Coast SpaceX launches.

Given that SpaceX has effectively ended the practice of static firing flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters before launch and the fact that both of the boosters (B1049 and B1051) believed to have been sent to Vandenberg are the most-flown vehicles in SpaceX’s fleet, it’s likely that today’s static fire was primarily a shakedown of its SLC-4E launch pad. Having just been inactive for the better part of a year, it’s likely that large portions of the pad were temporarily deactivated or mothballed, thus requiring a good amount of work to ready the facilities for another launch.

The successful static fire – likely featuring nine-flight booster B1049 – confirms that that work was satisfactory and that SLC-4E is now ready to support its first launch. According to SpaceX, though, the company “will announce a target date closer to” Starlink 2-1’s launch, implying that it could still be a week or more away. According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, all future Starlink launches will feature satellites with the company’s custom-built laser interlinks – a component that has seemingly taken a few more months than expected to finalize and mass-produce.

SpaceX originally intended to kick off polar Starlink launches out of Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral, Florida as early as July or August. As of now, Starlink 2-1 is tracking closer to a mid-September launch with a Falcon 9 booster landing several hundred kilometers downrange on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), which returned to Port of Long Beach just a few days ago after a mysterious trip to a Mexican dry dock.

Once those laser interlinks are ready for flight, though, SpaceX is expected to more or less return to its H1 2021 stride with polar Starlink launches every 1-2 weeks for the rest of the year. Liquid oxygen shortages caused by the United States’ inept handling of the coronavirus pandemic and a recent resurgence of cases and hospitalizations could throttle SpaceX’s ambitions somewhat, but it’s difficult to say how LOx and semi-related semiconductor chip shortages will actually affect cadence until the company starts regularly launching again.

Advertisement
-

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Ferrari Luce sold out for 2027 after design controversy

Published

on

Credit: Ferrari

Ferrari’s first electric vehicle, the Luce, is fully sold out for 2027, according to CEO Benedetto Vigna.

Presenting third-quarter results, he stated: “Everything we plan to sell next year is already fully allocated. Client test drives, scheduled for next year, will help further boost demand. We have no critical issues, neither on manufacturing nor on the demand side. Obviously, the car is more complex because it has many new parts and many new technologies.”

First customer deliveries are expected before the end of 2026, with the model already commanding waitlists despite a turbulent debut.

The Luce is a five-seat, four-door liftback saloon—the longest Ferrari ever produced—powered by four electric motors producing approximately 1,035 horsepower.

It features an 800-volt architecture, a 122-kWh battery, a claimed WLTP range of around 329 miles, 0-62 mph acceleration in 2.5 seconds, and a starting price near €550,000 in Europe (roughly $560,800–$615,000 in the U.S. depending on configuration).

Developed in collaboration with Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s LoveFrom studio alongside Ferrari’s own Centro Stile, it represents a deliberate departure from the brand’s traditional mid-engine sports cars toward a more spacious, grand-touring format.

Its exterior has proven deeply polarizing. Unveiled in Rome in May 2026, the design features smooth, sweeping surfaces, a large glass roof, and restrained detailing that critics described as bland, generic, or more reminiscent of an Apple product or mass-market EV than a Ferrari.

Ferrari unveils its Luce EV, and its reception has been a disaster

Online reactions included memes comparing it to a Nissan Leaf or Polestar, while former Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo publicly warned of “the destruction of a myth” and suggested the prancing horse logo be removed. Italian politicians and longtime owners joined the chorus of disappointment, and Ferrari’s shares dropped roughly 8% in a single day, erasing billions in market value.

Design experts noted the absence of the brand’s signature tension, aggression, and emotional drama.

Yet the controversy has not translated into weak demand among the ultra-wealthy clientele who actually buy Ferraris. Production volumes remain tightly limited, as reports suggest fewer than 500 units in the current year and a longer-term pace of roughly 600 annually through 2030, preserving exclusivity.

One early chassis sold for $40 million at auction. Vigna has indicated that seeing the car in person, along with upcoming client test drives, is expected to strengthen rather than weaken interest. Ferrari aims for fully electric models to comprise 20 percent of its lineup by 2030, with a second EV now delayed to 2028.

For a brand defined by scarcity and desirability, the Luce’s sell-out status suggests that among those who can afford it, the polarizing design has not proven to be a commercial liability.

Continue Reading

Investor's Corner

Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX decline after Democratic Midterm sweep

Published

on

Credit: Grok

Tesla and SpaceX shares fell on Wednesday after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress. The decline stood out as broader market securities recovered and turned positive, while both of Musk’s publicly traded companies lagged.

CEO Elon Musk already joked about the unsuccessful campaigning for the Republicans, but now the new party will make pretty drastic changes to how it handles Tesla and SpaceX, and those companies will adjust their outlook.

Elon Musk hilariously comments on Midterm election results

Let’s take a deeper look.

Tesla ($TSLA)

Tesla shares traded lower during the regular session after Democrats secured both the House and Senate. The stock was down 2.32 percent at around 1:45 p.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $389.30.

The pressure is tied to more than the raw scale of Musk’s political spending, estimated at $450–474 million this cycle with roughly $224 million directed at Texas. In that state, Tesla now faces a Democratic governor and a Democratic senator after Gina Hinojosa unseated Greg Abbott and James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton.

The Austin Gigafactory, Robotaxi pilot programs in multiple Texas cities, and any related AI compute expansion sit under a new state executive who campaigned against certain corporate subsidies and floated a moratorium on new data-center construction.

Federally, Democratic control of key committees opens the door to deeper examination of Tesla’s autonomous-driving safety record, federal energy-storage and manufacturing incentives, and the national-security implications of any combination with SpaceX.

Investors are also weighing whether the company’s historically close alignment with the prior Republican leadership will invite slower permitting, additional hearings, or tighter rules on Full Self-Driving deployment.

For Tesla, the political shift adds near-term friction around state permitting and federal regulatory approvals for autonomy and energy storage. A potential merger with SpaceX may face slower review even if it proceeds.

Core growth drivers such as vehicle deliveries, energy deployments, and robotaxi rollout remain intact, yet the stock now carries a higher political-risk premium that could weigh on valuation until the company demonstrates workable relationships with the new Texas leadership and congressional majorities.

SpaceX ($SPCX)

SpaceX shares also declined in live trading on November 4 following the Democratic midterm sweep. The stock traded at $134.97, down 4.49 percent. The drop occurred even as broader indexes stabilized, highlighting a company-specific reaction to the election outcome.

Musk’s large contributions, concentrated in Texas races that both companies lost, place SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility and headquarters under a new Democratic governor.

At the federal level, Democratic control of Congress enables greater scrutiny of NASA, the Department of Defense, and other contracts that support a meaningful share of revenue, along with reviews of Starlink national-security uses and any Tesla merger. Analysts have noted that empowered committees can hold hearings and request documents on these relationships.

For SpaceX, the results raise the risk of delayed contract awards, higher compliance costs, and tighter constraints on AI and satellite infrastructure expansion, particularly in Texas where a data-center moratorium has been discussed.

A merger with Tesla could encounter political friction that slows integration of launch, connectivity, and autonomy capabilities.

While Starlink growth and launch cadence continue as primary drivers, the company faces a more contested path for federal funding and state-level operations, requiring management to rebuild ties with the new congressional majorities and Texas leadership to limit the overhang.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla registrations in Germany nearly quadruple in October

Published

on

Credit: Tesla Manufacturing | X

Tesla’s new vehicle registrations in Germany rose sharply in October, nearly quadrupling from the same month a year earlier. That’s according to data from the KBA, Germany’s federal motor transport authority.

The KBA reported 2,932 Tesla vehicles registered in October, a 290.9 percent year-over-year- increase. For the first ten months of the year, Tesla’s cumulative registrations reached 47,742 units. This number is up 206.1 percent compared with the January-October period of 2025. These gains occurred against a backdrop of strong overall growth in the BEV sector as a whole.

Germany registered 94,086 new BEVs in October, a 79.5 percent rise that brought the BEV share of the passenger car market to 37 percent of the 254,492 total cars registered that month.

Despite the percentage surge, Tesla’s absolute numbers left it with a 1.2 percent share of all new car registrations for October. Chinese competitors did record higher volumes, as BYD registered 5,173 vehicles, a 2 percent share, Leapmotor with 3,661 cars, which equates to 1.4 percent, and Xpeng had a 0.5 percent share.

Year-to-date through October, BYD edged ahead of Tesla with 47,961 registrations versus Tesla’s 47,742.

The October results follow a notably strong September for Tesla in Germany, when it registered 12,552 vehicles, an increase of roughly 269 percent year-over-year and one of its strongest monthly totals on record in the country. That month, the Model Y led all EVs and ranked among the top-selling vehicles of any powertrain.

The figures form part of a broader recovery in Tesla’s European registrations after an extended period of softer demand. While monthly volumes remain subject to typical quarter-end patterns and competitive pressure from both established European brands and rapidly expanding Chinese manufacturers, the year-to-date growth indicates improved traction in Europe’s largest car market.

Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg continues to supply the region, positioning the company to capture a share of the expanding German BEV market as overall EV adoptions looks to be accelerating.

Continue Reading