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SpaceX could begin testing its Mars rocket in Texas by late 2018, early 2019
On the heels of a successful wet dress rehearsal for Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s President and COO Gwynne Shotwell spoke briefly about SpaceX for an aerospace conference located at Texas’ Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science. Ars Technica’s senior spaceflight editor Eric Berger was in attendance and provided a rough outline of live tweets during the first group of presentations.
While the phrasing cannot provide absolute confirmation, Berger summarized a statement by Shotwell suggesting that SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas launch site, currently in the early stages of construction, could be ready to host “vehicle tests” as soon as late 2018, early 2019. At this point in time, based on comments from Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk, it can be reasonably assumed that SpaceX’s Texas launch facilities will be dedicated mainly to the company’s interplanetary colonization efforts, and will probably be tailored to support the testing and eventual launches of BFR/BFS.
Some news from Shotwell: Brownsville launch site ready for vehicle tests in late 2018, early 2019. Move to launch site after that.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) January 11, 2018
After nine months of earnest construction and rehabilitation, SpaceX’s LC-40 pad was recently reactivated and has since supported two launches without any major hitches. At the same time, LC-39A in flux in order to support launches of SpaceX’s new Falcon Heavy rocket, the size of which required some concomitant upgrades to multiple ground systems. With both of those major tasks now effectively complete, SpaceX’s pad construction team is free to either refocus their efforts towards Boca Chica. Over the past several months, Boca Chica has seen a gradual but consistent level of development, mainly by way of unaffiliated SpaceX contractors. These changes have been dutifully tracked over the last several years on NASASpaceflight.com forums by a handful of friendly local residents interested in the changes coming to Boca Chica and Brownsville, Texas, a nearby town.
SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities and STARGATE dishes (center-left) seen at sunset from the top of the giant crane garage. (anonymous Instagram user)
Most significantly, the last several months have seen three major developments. First and most prominently, a permanent facility called STARGATE externally appears complete and its two large radio communication dishes have been installed nearby. The STARGATE facility is a public-private partnership between the University of Texas at Brownsville (now part of University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) and SpaceX, with the academic components focusing on research that SpaceX undoubtedly has interest in: improved orbital spacecraft tracking and communications. Operationally, SpaceX will use the facilities to communicate with and operate its Crew Dragon spacecraft during launches, set to begin with an uncrewed demonstration mission as early as August 2018.
Second, an absolutely massive trolley crane appeared on SpaceX’s land and was eventually housed in an apparently purpose-built shed. The crane dwarfs anything currently used at SpaceX’s launch facilities and is almost certainly a custom-ordered piece of equipment, and thus would be both expensive and explicitly purposeful. What that purpose might be is currently unknown, but it is entirely plausible that the crane is intended to support initial testing (or even limited manufacturing) of SpaceX’s first BFS prototype rockets. This speculation has now been strengthened by Shotwell’s January 11 2018 comment on potential “vehicle tests” occurring at the site within a year or so, and also meshes with a presentation she gave in October 2017 at MIT. It also fits with Elon Musk’s 2017 IAC comments that BFR construction tooling and facilities were respectively already ordered and under construction.
The boom of the giant crane seen in late 2017, parked at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities. (Reddit /u/ ticklestuff)
Third and last, the aforementioned SpaceX-following locals observed the early stages of a solar power install beginning on some of SpaceX’s Boca Chica land in late 2017, and also noted that at least some of its contractors were part of Tesla Solar. Plans and permits for solar power were acknowledged as far back as 2014, although at that point the contractor was Solar City (now a part of Tesla). A handful of months later, NASASpaceflight user and all-around awesome guy Nomadd has installed a webcam on a tall pole with a wonderful view of both the solar installation (now nearly completed) and STARGATE. The acre of solar panels can be expected to produce as much as half a megawatt (MW) at peak sun, likely more than enough to offset a considerable amount of the facilities’ electricity usage even after it begins to be see serious use.
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- A Tesla Energy/Solar City contractor’s vehicle spotted at the Boca Chica solar installation. (NSF /u/ bocachicagal)
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- As of last week, the solar installation appears to be nearly complete. (NSF /u/ Nomadd)
Originally announced as an additional Falcon launch facility in 2014, Boca Chica has remained relatively dormant over the last three years, and it is truly exciting to see activity ramping up. There are admittedly significant barriers that will prevent SpaceX from effortlessly repurposing its Boca Chica pad for BFR, a much larger rocket. If SpaceX intends to do that, they will almost certainly need to pass a significantly updated FAA environmental impact review and account for any remediations that might be required. Still, that is a small ask for for Brownsville’s local government and Texas as a whole, both of which have clearly enjoyed and begun to benefit from SpaceX’s presence in the otherwise unknown area. SpaceX is unlikely to give up on Boca Chica in the near term, so long as Ms. Shotwell maintains her belief that it is effectively the perfect location for BFR launches.
Overall, Shotwell’s comments over the last several months and today in particular are increasingly encouraging, and things are likely to only speed up as 2018 progresses, allowing SpaceX to focus more and more of its expertise on BFR, BFS, and its South Texas testing and launch facilities.
Full disclosure: As Shotwell did not specify which vehicle or vehicles could be expected to begin testing in 2018/2019, it is possible that Falcon 9, not BFR, was the statement’s target. This article should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is educated speculation based upon public information from SpaceX executives and Texas contractors. Teslarati reached out to SpaceX for additional information, but the company was unable to comment further on Shotwell’s presentation at the moment.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
Tesla Semi spotted on journey home after winter performance testing
PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
