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SpaceX’s first Super Heavy hardware is already being built at Florida Starship campus
Based on some basic analysis of recent photos of SpaceX’s East Coast Starship facility, situated in Cocoa, Florida, SpaceX has almost certainly begun fabricating and staging hardware that will eventually become part of the company’s first Super Heavy booster prototype.
This is by no means surprising but it does confirm the reasonable assumption that SpaceX is already working hard to ensure that the first Super Heavy booster(s) can be assembled as quickly as possible. Additionally, SpaceX appears to have started clearing brush in the process of preparing to transport the Florida orbital Starship prototype (“Mk2”) to SpaceX’s Pad 39A launch facilities, dozens of miles away.
Counting rings
The aforementioned “basic analysis” is more or less comprised of looking for and counting the massive steel rings that SpaceX has decided to build its Starships (and Super Heavy boosters) out of. By all appearances, SpaceX is doing nearly everything short of milling and preparing the raw materials (steel) internally. In Florida and Texas, giant rolls of stainless steel are delivered to the worksite by semi-truck, where SpaceX technicians prepare the rolls for sectioning (likely with a plasma torch or laser) and any necessary machining.
Intriguingly, SpaceX’s Texas and Florida teams are using different sizes of sheets – Florida has gone for taller segments while Texas uses rings that are a fair bit shorter ring, welding two rings together before installing each section on Starship. Florida’s rings are roughly 1.8m (6 ft; +/- 5%) tall.
In August alone, Cocoa has effectively doubled the height of the barrel section of its Mk2 orbital Starship prototype, jumping from 7-8 to 15 steel rings. The barrel section is now ~28m (90 ft) tall and Starship Mk2’s pointed nose section is still approximately 20-22m (65-70 ft) tall, adding up to a stacked height of 48-50m, approximately 10% shy of its final 55m (180 ft) height. Assuming that SpaceX hasn’t stretched Starship further since CEO Elon Musk’s September 2018 update, this leaves Starship Mk2 around 2-4 rings and a small nose cap shy of its full height (excluding legs).
Super Heavy rising
This brings us to even more recent views of SpaceX’s Cocoa Starship facility, taken on August 15th by local pilot Brian (Twitter: @flying_briann). A video from the flight offers an uninterrupted ~360-degree overview of the site, including glimpses of a surprising number of staged steel rings that have completed initial welding and are waiting for stacking and integration.
Two photos taken a bit less than two weeks ago provide a decent overview of SpaceX’s Cocoa facility. Of note, six staged rings are visible, as well as four additional rings in the form of two stacked sections of two rings. Those latter two sections (four rings) have since been stacked on Starship’s tank section, bringing it to its current 15-ring, ~28m height.
Despite the fact that Starship Mk2 appears to be just a few rings away from its final height, Brian’s August 15th overview revealed that no fewer than 11 additional rings (18m, 60 ft) are either staged or in the final stages of welding. Even if SpaceX has significantly stretched Starship over the last 10 or so months of design iteration, it seems exceedingly unlikely that Starship has grown by a full 10-12m (~20%).
Rather, these rings are probably the beginnings of SpaceX’s first Super Heavy booster prototype, a necessity before Starship can begin crucial orbital flight tests. Per the vehicle’s official 2018 specifications, Super Heavy will stand at least 63m (205 ft) tall before accounting for its landing legs/fins, requiring around 35 steel rings to complete its propellant tanks, interstage, and thrust structure.
According to CEO Elon Musk, Super Heavy will likely perform its first flight tests with approximately 20 Raptor engines, eventually arriving at a full 31-37 engines depending on the configuration. Musk also believes that Starship could be ready for its first orbital flight tests as early as December 2019, implying that SpaceX’s first Super Heavy prototype(s) could be fully assembled as few as 4-5 months from now.
In reality, 2020 is far more likely for both milestones, but Musk is not exactly well-known for his conservative schedule estimates.
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Tesla has launched a new Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y vehicles in the United States, meaning you can now power devices like laptops or light strings with your vehicle’s battery.
It appears the capability will be available for any Model Y Premium trim, including those that were purchased prior to the Adapter being launched. It will also only impact Juniper Model Y vehicles, so the first-gen owners will unfortunately not have access to this capability.
If your Model Y was purchased before Tesla renamed the trim levels to “Premium” and “Standard,” it does not seem to be compatible. My Model Y is technically a Premium build, as it is the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive. However, Tesla says it is not compatible with my vehicle.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Outlet Adapter for Model Y Premium in the U.S., enabling V2L capability for all Premium trims (that’s what it appears to be as it is available for purchase with all Premium trims)
It’s available for $80. 2.4kW max power and rated for 120v, 20A pic.twitter.com/lDxlVIk5s8
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 14, 2026
For $80, you can now utilize your car as a portable charger for small appliances or devices. This is perfect for things like tailgates, concerts, or camping, as you can now plug in devices that you might use. Those string lights for camping? That laptop for the other games that are on at the tailgate?
They’ll both utilize energy from your Tesla’s battery to be powered. This is the first time Tesla has expanded the capability to vehicles outside of the Model Y Performance and Cybertruck. However, this feature has been highly requested by owners for an extended period of time.
Tesla launched the Outlet Adapter in China last year:
Tesla China rolls out Model Y L V2L adapter, and it’s free for early owners
You will need the Mobile Connector to operate the Outlet Adapter: the Outlet Adapter will plug into the main housing of the Mobile Connector, where the appropriate adapter to charge your vehicle will plug in.
It is rated for 120 volts and 20 amps, and has a max power rating of 2.4kW.
You can buy it here from Tesla for $80.
Tesla is nearing its long-awaited unveiling of the all-electric Tesla Roadster, a new report from The Information claims, as the company has said several times this year that the event would take place “soon.”
Now, it appears there is movement on Tesla’s end regarding when it will happen.
The report says that Tesla will unveil the Roadster as soon as this month with a SpaceX version that will utilize cold-gas thrusters to help the vehicle float for a short period of time. This is something CEO Elon Musk has talked about with the Roadster for years.
🚨 The Information is reporting this morning that Tesla is ready to unveil the “flying” Roadster as soon as this month
It’s almost here, folks. pic.twitter.com/IdL4atsucQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 14, 2026
Additionally, due to the delays, Tesla explored “a variety of designs” for the Roadster, potentially planning to abandon the design it showed off for the first time in 2017 and adopting an entirely new aesthetic.
According to The Information, Tesla considered utilizing a repurposed Model S Plaid and even wanted to upgrade the look to something like a Lamborghini Countach.
We’ve heard all of these things before, including teases about the date and how “soon” the Roadster will finally be ready to be shown off to the world (for the second time). Musk said that the event would occur in April, then May, then Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen continued to say it would be coming “soon.”
We do expect to see the Roadster by the end of the year, and now with this new report swirling, it appears it could be sooner rather than later.
The wait has been incredibly long, but there is likely a good reason for it. Tesla’s desire to make the Roadster the craziest vehicle on the road was non-negotiable, and it likely took a lot of time and resources to develop and perfect into something that was safe and suitable for a vehicle like this.
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Tesla finally got its Nevada Robotaxi Permit but with a few catches hard to miss
Nevada granted Tesla’s robotaxi permit, but capped the fleet at just ten vehicles for now.
Tesla has received its robotaxi permit in Nevada, more than two months after regulators closed the public comment period on the company’s application. News of the approval surfaced Wednesday night when Tesla investor and longtime company watcher Sawyer Merritt posted a copy of the interim order, and the Nevada Transportation Authority’s own carrier registry now lists the permit, AVNC Permit 002 under Docket 26-05015, as active for Tesla Robotaxi, LLC.
Tesla asked Nevada in June for authority to run up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County within a year, however the permit the NTA issued is initially capping Tesla at ten fully autonomous vehicles and confines them to a defined geofence along the Las Vegas Strip corridor. Any expansion of that operating area, or any increase to the fleet size, requires the NTA’s approval first.
Tesla has received its Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada.
The Nevada Transportation Authority says that operations are limited to a maximum fleet of 10 fully autonomous vehicles and shall be conducted only within the Authority-approved Operational Design… https://t.co/Cxfd6GIfDk pic.twitter.com/iOO6wSZkHF
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 13, 2026
The order also sets rules that look more restrictive than what Tesla runs in Austin. Rides are barred on roads with posted speed limits above 45 miles per hour, pickups are off limits within a quarter mile of Harry Reid International Airport without separate authorization, and every vehicle has to carry visible “Robotaxi” markings while notifying riders before each trip that no one is driving. The order also requires “appropriate human supervision”, language that suggests Nevada isn’t ready to let Tesla offer the rides without a safety monitor that it has run in parts of Austin since January. As with standard protocol with robotaxi services, Tesla must report any accident, system failure, or vehicle that becomes stranded on a Nevada road within five business days.
Tesla is entering a market Nevada already knows well. Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi company, has run its own autonomous vehicle permit in the state since last year, building up to roughly 100 vehicles and 350,000 rides along the Strip. That history likely explains why the NTA started Tesla at ten cars rather than the fleet size the company asked for. The agency has a template for scaling a permit up once a company proves out its safety record.
Tesla’s Nevada application first surfaced in June, when the company filed for the permit alongside plans for a maintenance hub in southwest Las Vegas. The company has said it won’t meaningfully scale its robotaxi fleet anywhere until FSD v15 ships, expected in late 2026 or early 2027, which makes the ten vehicle cap less of a constraint today than it might look on paper. For now, Tesla has the legal right to start Nevada rides. Whether it starts before FSD v15 arrives is a separate question the permit doesn’t answer.
Tesla launches V2L Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y in the U.S.
Tesla Roadster unveiling nears, and it will fly: The Information
