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SpaceX seeks licenses for BFR spaceship prototype hop test campaign
Recent filings confirm that SpaceX has begun the process of applying for permits and licenses that will eventually allow the company to legally conduct hop and flight tests of a BFR spaceship prototype at its prospective South Texas development facilities.
While the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation does not provide public access to pending applications, the FCC’s Experimental Licensing System published a summary of SpaceX’s request, briefly describing a series tests to be performed with a “Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle” in the near future.
While official plans to perform Grasshopper-style hop tests with a full-scale prototype of the BFR’s upper stage – known as BFS (Big Falcon Spaceship) – have been public knowledge in some form for over a year, SpaceX’s short description of the initially planned hop test activities offers a much more accurate view of the actual scope of those tests.
Most notably, SpaceX describes a campaign “divided into low‐altitude and higher‐altitude tests” that range from a ceiling of 500m (~1650 ft) to 5000m (~16,500 ft) and an overall length of ~100 to 360 seconds (1.5 to 6 minutes).
“The tests themselves are divided into low‐altitude and higher‐altitude tests. The low‐altitude tests stay below 500 meters in altitude and last approximately 100 seconds. These tests will be run approximately three times per week during the initial portion of the program. The higher‐altitude tests can go as high as 5 km and will occur approximately once per week. These tests last approximately 6 minutes.” – SpaceX, 11/20/2018, FCC File 0931-EX-CN-2018
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- A BFS attempts a Mars landing in this official updated render. (SpaceX)
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- It’s unclear just how high-fidelity the first spaceship prototype will be, but it could look similar to this. (SpaceX)
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- Eventually, SpaceX may graduate into high-speed, high-altitude flight tests of the prototype spaceship to fully test the design of its its control surfaces and “ultra-lightweight heat shield”. (SpaceX)
Tireless local (and not so local) observers continue to cover SpaceX’s and the company’s contractors’ day-to-day activities in Boca Chica, Texas and have recently played witness to the erection of part of a massive tent at an adjacent lot, appearing to be about the same scale as the tent SpaceX technicians and engineers are currently building the first prototype spaceship inside. They might not have the appeal of a big, shiny, expensive factory, but tents are extremely convenient, flexible, scalable, and affordable, lending themselves perfectly to long-term but inherently temporary projects like SpaceX’s BFR prototype development.
Meanwhile, roughly 2.5 km East of SpaceX’s newly raised tent, antennas, and propellant storage tanks, the company has begun in earnest the removal and repurposing of several hundred thousand tons of soil that have been sat atop a prospective launch pad and hangar site for 3+ years. The task of using its sheer mass and the force of gravity to help settle and strengthen the otherwise marshy, sandy ground now complete, the massive dirt pile can be repurposed to support the construction of causeways, access roads, landing pads, and more. By all appearances, SpaceX has begun to do just that and the dirt pile is rapidly shrinking as it is redistributed across the company’s local property.
There is activity. pic.twitter.com/A8JYw6vdW6
— Nehkara (@Nehkara) October 13, 2018
Once complete, the area will be transformed from flat marshland into a group of facilities capable of supporting critical flight tests of BFR’s spaceship/upper-stage, if not eventual orbital launches of integrated boosters and spaceships. According to recent public statements from CEO Elon Musk and COO Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX is targeting the start of those hop tests as early as late-2019.
News
Tesla launches its coolest gift idea ever just a few weeks after it was announced
“Gift one month of Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which allows the vehicle to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal intervention.”
Tesla has launched its coolest gift idea ever, just a few weeks after it was announced.
Tesla is now giving owners the opportunity to gift Full Self-Driving for one month to friends or family through a new gifting program that was suggested to the company last month.
The program will enable people to send a fellow Tesla owner one month of the company’s semi-autonomous driving software, helping them to experience the Full Self-Driving suite and potentially help Tesla gain them as a subscriber of the program, or even an outright purchase.
Tesla is going to allow owners to purchase an FSD Subscription for another owner for different month options
You’ll be able to gift FSD to someone! https://t.co/V29dhf5URj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 3, 2025
Tesla has officially launched the program on its Shop. Sending one month of Full Self-Driving costs $112:
“Gift one month of Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which allows the vehicle to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal intervention. All sales are final. Can only be purchased and redeemed in the U.S. This gift card is valued at $112.00 and is intended to cover the price of one month of FSD (Supervised), including up to 13% sales tax. It is not guaranteed to cover the full monthly price if pricing or tax rates change. This gift card can be stored in Tesla Wallet and redeemed toward FSD (Supervised) or any other Tesla product or service that accepts gift card payments.”
Tesla has done a great job of expanding Full Self-Driving access over the past few years, especially by offering things like the Subscription program, free trials through referrals, and now this gift card program.
Gifting Full Self-Driving is another iteration of Tesla’s “butts in seats” strategy, which is its belief that it can flip consumers to its vehicles and products by simply letting people experience them.
There is also a reason behind pushing Full Self-Driving so hard, and it has to do with CEO Elon Musk’s compensation package. One tranche requires Musk to achieve a certain number of active paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
More people who try the suite are likely to pay for it over the long term.
News
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
Tesla said recently it plans to launch Robotaxi in Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Dallas.
Tesla has expanded Robotaxi app access once again, but this time, it’s on a much broader scale as the company is offering the opportunity for those outside of North America to download the app.
Tesla Robotaxi is the company’s early-stage ride-hailing platform that is active in Texas, California, and Arizona, with more expansion within the United States planned for the near future.
Tesla said recently it plans to launch Robotaxi in Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Dallas.
The platform has massive potential, and Tesla is leaning on it to be a major contributor to even more disruption in the passenger transportation industry. So far, it has driven over 550,000 miles in total, with the vast majority of this coming from the Bay Area and Austin.
First Look at Tesla’s Robotaxi App: features, design, and more
However, Tesla is focusing primarily on rapid expansion, but most of this is reliant on the company’s ability to gain regulatory permission to operate the platform in various regions. The expansion plans go well outside of the U.S., as the company expanded the ability to download the app to more regions this past weekend.
So far, these are the areas it is available to download in:
- Japan
- Thailand
- Hong Kong
- South Korea
- Australia
- Taiwan
- Macau
- New Zealand
- Mexico
- U.S.
- Canada
Right now, while Tesla is focusing primarily on expansion, it is also working on other goals that have to do with making it more widely available to customers who want to grab a ride from a driverless vehicle.
One of the biggest goals it has is to eliminate safety monitors from its vehicles, which it currently utilizes in Austin in the passenger’s seat and in the driver’s seat in the Bay Area.
A few weeks ago, Tesla started implementing a new in-cabin data-sharing system, which will help support teams assist riders without anyone in the front of the car.
Tesla takes a step towards removal of Robotaxi service’s safety drivers
As Robotaxi expands into more regions, Tesla stands to gain tremendously through the deployment of the Full Self-Driving suite for personal cars, as well as driverless Robotaxis for those who are just hailing rides.
Things have gone well for Tesla in the early stages of the Robotaxi program, but expansion will truly be the test of how things operate going forward. Navigating local traffic laws and gaining approval from a regulatory standpoint will be the biggest hurdle to jump.
Tesla received a price target boost from Morgan Stanley, according to a new note on Monday morning, but there is some considerable caution also being communicated over the next year or so.
Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco took over Tesla coverage for the firm from longtime bull Adam Jonas, who appears to be focusing on embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
Percoco took over and immediately adjusted the price target for Tesla from $410 to $425, and changed its rating on shares from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco said he believes Tesla is the leading company in terms of electric vehicles, manufacturing, renewable energy, and real-world AI, so it deserves a premium valuation. However, he admits the high expectations for the company could provide for a “choppy trading environment” for the next year.
He wrote:
“However, high expectations on the latter have brought the stock closer to fair valuation. While it is well understood that Tesla is more than an auto manufacturer, we expect a choppy trading environment for the TSLA shares over the next 12 months, as we see downside to estimates, while the catalysts for its non-auto businesses appear priced at current levels.”
Percoco also added that if market cap hurdles are achieved, Morgan Stanley would reduce its price target by 7 percent.
Perhaps the biggest change with Percoco taking over the analysis for Jonas is how he will determine the value of each individual project. For example, he believes Optimus is worth about $60 per share of equity value.
He went on to describe the potential value of Full Self-Driving, highlighting its importance to the Tesla valuation:
“Full Self Driving (FSD) is the crown jewel of Tesla’s auto business; we believe that its leading-edge personal autonomous driving offering is a real game changer, and will remain a significant competitive advantage over its EV and non-EV peers. As Tesla continues to improve its platform with increased levels of autonomy (i.e., hands-off, eyes-off), it will revolutionize the personal driving experience. It remains to be seen if others will be able to keep pace.”
Additionally, Percoco outlined both bear and bull cases for the stock. He believes $860 per share, “which could be in play in the next 12 months if Tesla manages through the EV-downturn,” while also scaling Robotaxi, executing on unsupervised FSD, and scaling Optimus, is in play for the bull case.
Will Tesla thrive without the EV tax credit? Five reasons why they might
Meanwhile, the bear case is placed at $145 per share, and “assumes greater competition and margin pressure across all business lines, embedding zero value for humanoids, slowing the growth curve for Tesla’s robotaxi fleet to reflect regulatory challenges in scaling a vision-only perception stack, and lowering market share and margin profile for the autos and energy businesses.”
Currently, Tesla shares are trading at around $441.
Tesla launches its coolest gift idea ever just a few weeks after it was announced
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
