

News
SpaceX high-altitude Starship debut go for a second launch attempt
Update (Dec 9th): All signs point to a second attempt at SpaceX’s high-altitude Starship launch debut sometime near the end of today’s window, likely no earlier than 3:30-4 pm CST (UTC-6).
Amazingly, the actual pilot of the NASA WB-57 reconnaissance aircraft tasked with capturing aerial photos and videos of Starship SN8’s first flight is on Twitter and confirmed that the aircraft had been just a few minutes from takeoff before SpaceX chose to delay the launch for a few more hours. Thankfully, as of 2 pm CST, ground equipment activity at the pad is rapidly picking up – a good sign that SN8 launch preparations are well underway.
Stay tuned for SpaceX’s official Starship SN8 launch livestream around five minutes before liftoff and tune into NASASpaceflight.com’s excellent coverage below to keep up to date on launch proceedings.
Update: Starship serial number 8 (SN8) aborted its high-altitude launch debut at the last second, ending today’s attempt for SpaceX.
Depending on why one or several of the steel rocket’s three advanced Raptor engines aborted their ignition, SpaceX has backup launch windows and airspace closures from 8am to 5pm CST (UTC-6) on December 9th and 10th. Stay tuned for updates on the cause of the abort and whether Starship SN8 can be prepared for another attempt less than a day from now.
In a last-minute surprise, SpaceX appears to have secured NASA support for Starship SN8’s first flight in the form of a space agency reconnaissance jet often used to capture aerial photos and videos of spaceflight events.
Primarily intended to capture those views for developmental, data-gathering purposes, NASA WB-57 jets have recently been used to milestones like SpaceX’s explosive Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort test and Demo-2 astronaut launch/reentry debut. Likely made possible by a $135 million Starship Moon lander development contract awarded by NASA in April, the space agency has positioned itself to benefit from SpaceX’s success and leverage the company’s extensive internal investments.
Aside from exemplifying NASA’s new and promising relationship with SpaceX’s Starship development program, the use of space agency surveillance assets also serves as a convenient barometer to judge Starship SN8’s launch timing with.
As of publishing (1:30 pm EST, UTC-5), NASA’s WB-57 jet is scheduled to take off from Houston’s Ellington Airport at 2:12 pm CST, arriving ‘on station’ in the vicinity of SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas launch pad around 3:10 pm. With NASA assets now in play, Starship SN8 is unlikely to lift off before the jet is in place, meaning that the rocket’s 12.5 km (~7.8 mi) launch debut is now scheduled sometime between ~3:15 pm and 5 pm CST (UTC-6).
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently reiterated his prediction that Starship SN8 has a ~33% chance of successfully launching, reaching an apogee of ~12.5 km, free-falling belly-first most of the way back to earth, performing a radical flip maneuver, and landing intact. With Starship SN9 – effectively a refined clone of SN8 – practically complete and ready to roll to the launch pad, SpaceX’s hardware-rich development program means that almost any SN8 outcome at all will produce valuable data.
For a program like Starship, the success of any early prototype is better judged on the quantity and quality of data gathered and lessons learned than on the survival of hardware. Even so, SpaceX is clearly working to give Starship SN8 the best possible shot at survival and a successful landing would be a truly spectacular outcome. Stay tuned for updates as we track towards SN8’s first flight!
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals Tesla’s next Robotaxi expansion in more ways than one
Tesla Robotaxi is growing in more ways than one. Tesla wants to expand and hopes to reach half the U.S. population by the end of the year.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company’s plans for its next expansion of the Robotaxi in terms of both the geofence in Austin and the platform overall, as it looks to move to new areas outside of Texas.
Tesla launched the Robotaxi platform last month on June 22, and has since expanded both the pool of users and the area that the driverless Model Y vehicles can travel within.
The first expansion of the geofence caught the attention of nearly everyone and became a huge headline as Tesla picked a very interesting shape for the new geofence, resembling male reproductive parts.
🚨 Elon Musk says Tesla’s Robotaxi geofence in Austin will get “even bigger and longer” in “a couple weeks or so” pic.twitter.com/0gLeKfURMi
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 23, 2025
The next expansion will likely absolve this shape. Musk revealed last night that the new geofence will be “well in excess of what competitors are doing,” and it could happen “hopefully in a week or two.”
Musk’s full quote regarding the expansion of the geofence and the timing was:
“As some may have noted, we have already expanded our service area in Austin. It’s bigger and longer, and it’s going to get even bigger and longer. We are expecting to greatly increase the service area to well in excess of what competitors are doing, hopefully in a week or two.”
The expansion will not stop there, either. As Tesla has operated the Robotaxi platform in Austin for the past month, it has been working with regulators in other areas, like California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, to get the driverless ride-hailing system activated in more U.S. states.
Tesla confirmed that they are in talks with each of these states regarding the potential expansion of Robotaxi.
Musk added:
“As we get the approvals and prove out safety, we will be launching the autonomous ride-hailing across most of the country. I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the US by the end of the year.”
We know that Tesla and Musk have been prone to aggressive and sometimes outlandish timelines regarding self-driving technology specifically. Regulatory approvals could happen by the end of the year in several areas, and working on these large metros is the best way to reach half of the U.S. population.
Tesla said its expansion of the geofence in Austin is conservative and controlled due to its obsession with safety, even admitting at one point during the Earnings Call that they are being “paranoid.” Expanding the geofence is necessary, but Tesla realizes any significant mistake by Robotaxi could take it back to square one.
News
Tesla warns customers of incentive strategy on EVs as tax credit nears end
If you’re thinking of buying a Tesla, the time to order is now, the company claimed.

Tesla has warned customers about its incentive strategy for qualifying electric vehicles, as the days of both the $7,500 EV tax credit for new EVs and the $4,000 credit for used EVs are coming to a close.
Both tax credits, which impact some of the vehicles in the Tesla lineup, are set to be eliminated at the end of Q3. The phase out of these consumer credits was always in the plans of the Trump Administration, but now we’re in the final quarter of their existence.
As a result, EV companies are scrambling to see how they can reduce costs or make their vehicles more affordable for customers. The $7,500 will price many consumers out of many EVs on the market, and Tesla is not immune to that.
However, Tesla has made a significant push into Q3 deliveries, rolling out numerous incentives to customers, including 0% APR on select purchases, lease deals, free upgrades on certain inventory units, and more.
The extensive list of incentives on Tesla vehicles in the quarter will not get any longer, either. During last night’s Tesla Earnings Call for the second quarter of 2025, company executives stated that their intention for these incentives was to encourage customers to place orders early in the quarter.
Tesla will only be able to apply the $7,500 credit with deliveries that occur before the end of September. Even if an order is placed before then, delivery must be completed by September 31 to receive the tax credit.
CFO Vaibhav Taneja confirmed that the incentives for the quarter are already out and encouraged customers to place an order sooner rather than later:
“Given the abrupt change, we have a limited supply of vehicles in the US this quarter. As we are already within lead times to order parts for cars, we have rolled out all our planned incentives already and will start pairing them back as we start to sell. If you are in the US and looking to buy a car, let’s roll now as we may not be able to guarantee delivery for orders placed in the later part of August and beyond.”
🚨 Tesla has rolled out all of the incentives it plans to utilize in Q3
These incentives will slowly be removed as supply becomes limited.
In short: put your Tesla order in NOW pic.twitter.com/UaqPfWtiJP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 23, 2025
The loss of the incentives will impact every EV maker in the United States. Tesla has a plan moving forward, and it said last night that its affordable models would be rolled out in Q4, as introducing these cars any earlier could have detrimental effects on Model 3 and Model Y sales.
News
Tesla Model Y awarded Top Safety Pick+ from IIHS
The new Model Y continues to impress with this new award.

The 2025 Tesla Model Y was one of two midsize luxury SUVs to receive the Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
To qualify for the IIHS’s Top Safety Pick+ or even the lower-tier Top Safety Pick label, vehicles need good ratings in the small overlap front and side crash tests, an acceptable or good rating in the pedestrian front crash prevention evaluation, and acceptable or good ratings for headlights across all trim levels.
The difference between the two labels is that an “Acceptable” rating in the moderate overlap front test will get a car the Top Safety Pick rating, but a “Good” rating in this category will win the elusive Top Safety Pick+ category.
The 2025 Model Y, codenamed “Juniper” internally by Tesla, was released in the United States earlier this year and received the top rating across each of the categories, automatically qualifying it for the Top Safety Pick+ label:
🚨 The 2025 Tesla Model Y has earned the Top Safety Pick+ award and label from the IIHS
It aced each of the collision rating test scenarios in its recent assessment
The safest cars on Earth! 🌎 pic.twitter.com/XHoOLPa3IJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2025
Other vehicles in Tesla’s lineup have extraordinary marks in crash testing according to other agencies, like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but there are reasons those cars are not on the IIHS lists.
In 2024, we reported that the IIHS had evaluated some Tesla vehicles for the necessary tests to achieve these marks. Joe Young of the agency told us that the Model 3, for example, was not featured on either the Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ lists because the vehicle had several missing tests.
Here’s why the Tesla Model 3 wasn’t an IIHS Top Safety Pick+, and why it could be soon
This is not to say those other Tesla vehicles would not perform well. The Cybertruck performed better than any pickup has ever in NHTSA crash testing assessments.
The Model Y is Tesla’s most popular vehicle and was the best-selling car in the world over the past two years. Tesla’s intense focus on safety continues to show that this priority goes into every decision the company makes regarding design and engineering. This focus has continued to pay dividends as some real-world crashes save the lives of those inside the cars.
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