News
SpaceX’s reusable Falcon rockets have Europe thinking two steps ahead
In a rare instance of some connection to reality, a European Union commissioner overseeing the space industry has acknowledged the elephant in the room, admitting that SpaceX has changed the game for commercial rockets and that the upcoming Ariane 6 rocket may already be outdated.
While slight, European Commissioner Thierry Breton expressed some level of urgency, stating that “SpaceX has redefined the standards for launchers.” “Ariane 6 is a necessary step, but not the ultimate aim: we must start thinking now about Ariane 7.” Ariane 6 is a new European Space Agency (ESA) rocket designed to replace the existing Ariane 5 workhorse and do some while cutting costs. However, the vehicle’s design and the strategy behind it were fixed in place before SpaceX began to routinely demonstrate Falcon 9 reusability, effectively creating a rocket optimized for a market that ceased to exist soon after.
Based on the economically infeasible design decision to build a hybrid first stage with a liquid core and add-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs), as well as the structurally inefficient use of hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant for the booster, Ariane 6 is designed to compete with the likes of the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Delta IV, Atlas V, and upcoming Vulcan rockets. Despite several years of halfhearted, half-baked attempts to even consider making parts of Ariane 6 reusable, the rocket will be 100% expendable come its first (and likely last) launches.
While effectively dead on arrival from a commercially competitive perspective, Ariane 6 is still an impressive rocket. Featuring two variants, the only major difference is the inclusion of either two or four SRBs. A62 is expected to cost roughly $82 million and will be able to launch up to 5000 kg (~11,000 lb) to the geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) commonly used by the communications satellites that are Ariane 5’s bread and butter. Doubling down on solid rocket boosters, A64 will cost at least $135 million apiece and can launch up to 11.5 metric tons (~25,400 lb) to GTO and 5 metric tons to a circular geostationary orbit (GEO).
Compared to SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy offerings, Ariane 6 is thus put in a bit of a nightmarish situation. According to the most up-to-date information available, the base price for a commercial orbital launch on a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster may already be as low as $50 million. Even in a recoverable configuration, Falcon 9 easily trounces Ariane 62’s performance and is able to launch more than 16 metric tons to low Earth orbit (A62: 10.3 t) and 5.5 tons (A62: 5 t) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), all while costing almost 40% less.
Technically, Ariane 64 is a bit more viable from a performance perspective, but Falcon Heavy can offer almost identical performance to higher orbits and vastly superior performance to lower orbits while still permitting recovery of all three boosters. Cost-wise, Falcon Heavy either meets or beats A64, with existing contracts ranging from $115 to $130 million for extraordinarily high-value NASA and US military payloads. According to SpaceX, the rocket’s base price could be as low as $90 million. Once SpaceX has three operational drone ships on the East Coast, Falcon Heavy can send up to 10 metric tons to GTO while still allowing all three boosters to land at sea. If one of those three boosters is expended, that performance leaps to 16 tons, 40% more than A64.
In short, even assuming no improvements between now and Ariane 6’s first several launches in 2021 and 2022, SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets beat Europe’s newest entrant at almost every turn. It should be no surprise, then, that a senior ESA commissioner is already publicly implying that Ariane 6 is outdated before its first launch. As far as “Ariane 7” goes, no official plans exist, although ESA, French space agency (CNES), and Arianespace have tenuous concepts in work that point towards a fully liquid methane-oxygen rocket with a reusable booster.
In theory, a rocket like Themis could launch Europe back into the competitive global launch industry, but ESA’s history of launch vehicle development suggests that such a radical departure from Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 (>$4 billion on its own) would require a huge uptick in funding and 5-10 years of development. With pragmatic supporters like Breton, there is at least some hope, but the outlook is decidedly gray.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Tesla’s two recently-defunct flagship models, the Model S and Model X, are getting a big upgrade, according to the company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy.
Older Hardware 3 Model S and Model X vehicles have been the last major holdouts in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving v14 Lite rollout, and that wait now appears to be ending.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
At Tesla’s Cybercab launch, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy told Ryan McCaffrey that he thought the S and X build “was supposed to go out last week.” Evidently, Elluswamy expects the suite to be rolled out to those HW3 Model S and Model X very soon:
For my @Tesla friends – and specifically Model S & X owners with HW3 who are waiting on FSD v14 Lite – I spoke to @aelluswamy at the Cybercab launch, & when I asked for an ETA on v14 Lite for S/X owners, he said, “Oh, I thought it was supposed to go out last week.”
So: soon! 🙌
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) September 7, 2026
Those cars are not the current Model S and Model X, which already ship with Hardware 4. They are the pre-refresh flagships built around Tesla’s older Autopilot computer, often called HW3 or AI3.
Tesla stopped putting that computer in new vehicles years ago, which is why owners treat these S and X cars as a closed generation. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles on the same computer began receiving v14 Lite in late June 2026 and saw a wider North American expansion in July. South Korea followed as an early international market. The S and X versions of the same software never joined that wave.
v14 Lite is Tesla’s way of squeezing the current v14 driving stack onto hardware that cannot run the full AI 4 model. The company describes the process as distillation: behaviors learned on the newer computer, including reinforcement learning and offline models, are compressed so the older chip and cameras can use them as a guide.
Early descriptions put the distilled network at roughly 15 percent of the original size. The result is still supervised Level 2 driving. Tesla has been clear that HW3 cannot support unsupervised Full Self-Driving or robotaxi operation because of memory and bandwidth limits.
The feature list is what made the wait so frustrating for S and X owners, as plenty of new features are to be shipped with it.
Official notes for the first Lite build, firmware 2026.20.5.1, added parking, unparking, and reversing; arrival options for a parking lot, street, driveway, or curbside; speed profiles that stay available at all times; and start-from-park engagement. Tesla also claimed better handling of merges, forks, pedestrians, traffic lights, and cut-ins, plus fewer false slowdowns and smoother lane centering.
A mid-July follow-on build, 2026.20.6.10, added more of the Hardware 4 interface, including a standalone Self-Driving app and the ability to start a trip from Park without a brake-pedal confirmation.
Elluswamy called that version the one “likely going to wide release.”
That wide release already reached most other HW3 cars in the United States and Canada. International timing still depends on regional validation and regulatory approval. For S and X owners, the remaining work appears to be model-specific validation rather than a new software stack.
There is no official Tesla changelog or build number for those two models yet, only Elluswamy’s offhand timeline. Some HW3 drivers who already have Lite report large gains over v12.6; others have described new indecision or phantom braking. The next test will be whether the same software lands cleanly on the older flagships that have waited the longest.
Yesterday, we reported on Tesla Cybertruck getting some major adjustments from a manufacturing standpoint in an effort to make the all-electric pickup more cost-effective, more reliable, more serviceable, and more easily produced.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
One of those changes was the addition of a self-reinforcing polypropylene aero shield that sits underneath the truck. Previously, Tesla utilized aluminum for this, but the self-reinforcing polypropylene was more durable while also being cheaper and lighter.
Tesla has revealed another small change it made to the Cybertruck, and it has to do with the side repeater cameras.
Tesla does not wait for a new model year to improve its vehicles. On September 8, Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill posted side-by-side photos of an updated side repeater camera housing now rolling off the line at Gigafactory Texas.
The triangular camera pod mounted on the front fender looks almost identical at first glance. A closer look reveals a revised contour that uses the air already flowing around the truck to keep the lens clearer in rain and road spray.
The side repeater camera was updated – the version on the left is the newer part which uses passive geometry to create airflow disturbance that better keep water off the lens while driving. No cost penalty, just pure vision improvement. pic.twitter.com/wAbXtcL1Jf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 8, 2026
The side repeater cameras sit in an exposed position on the Cybertruck’s angular stainless-steel body.
In wet weather, they readily collect water droplets that can degrade the image Autopilot and Full Self-Driving use for lane changes and blind-spot monitoring. Early production trucks sometimes left owners wiping lenses by hand or accepting temporary restrictions on driver-assistance features.
Tesla has added washers to cameras on certain other models and on Cybercab prototypes, but those active systems add cost, complexity, and extra potential leak points.
The new housing solves the problem with passive geometry. Subtle changes in the surround create localized airflow disturbances as the vehicle moves. Those eddies physically push water droplets away from the optical surface. Morrill called the result “pure vision improvement” achieved at “no cost penalty.” Once the production mold is updated, every subsequent part costs the same as the original.
The advantages compound quickly. Clearer cameras in rain improve the reliability of driver-assistance features precisely when they are needed most. The design consumes no extra energy and introduces no new failure modes.
New Cybertrucks built after the tooling changeover receive the updated part automatically. Some owners of trucks delivered as late as June 2026 have already confirmed they received the revised housing. Retrofit questions have appeared in replies, and the cameras appear electrically compatible, though Tesla has not announced an official service program.
A few millimeters of reshaped housing will not make headlines the way a new battery pack does, but these changes are incremental and increase the Cybertruck’s effectiveness as a vehicle over time.
This improvement illustrates how Tesla continues to refine the Cybertruck after volume production began. Better wet-weather vision, zero added cost, and no extra hardware add up to a meaningful gain in everyday usability and safety.
Tesla is rolling out a new version of its Full Self-Driving suite to some owners that comes with the massive addition of a safety feature.
Tesla is rolling out Automatic Collision Evasion with the 2026.27.6 Software Update, which started rolling out to some vehicles last night. We received the update, along with Full Self-Driving v14.3.9, as well as v14.2 Lite, which has identical release notes as the previous version and seems to have some refinements and improvements in behavior and performance.
🚨 Tesla FSD v14.3.9 is rolling out as well as 2026.27.6 which includes Automatic Collision Evasion
Brand new safety features from a software update. My Tesla gets better everytime I get one of these pic.twitter.com/ctrMiQXWhM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 8, 2026
However, most of the attention has fallen on the Automatic Collision Evasion feature, which we covered in an article last week.
The function will activate Full Self-Driving to “try to keep your vehicle safe and then continue driving. It can engage in the following situations while you are driving manually:
- Scenario 1: A frontal collision is imminent and braking alone may not avoid it.
- Scenario 2: Your vehicle detects that you are not sufficiently attentive to the road (for example, reaching toward the back seat), or that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) may have been unintentionally disengaged.”
Essentially, FSD will take over when the vehicle determines you are not paying sufficient attention or are heading toward a potential collision. The addition of this feature is incredibly useful as distracted driving is a major issue in today’s world.
Along with the new safety feature is Tesla FSD v14.3.9, which has no additional release notes compared to the previous version, but in my first drives, my first impression is that operation is great, and parking is still sort of a pain point.
Just took a 15-mile round trip to the gym and back
Pretty on par with what FSD is nowadays – really good. Not enough time to see what’s good and what’s bad, but these first rides on any version feel shockingly good. They’re all pretty identical https://t.co/WN1qTg4bhE
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 9, 2026
Additionally, Tesla v14.2. Lite has arrived. A great review of that is available here:
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) September 9, 2026
The addition of an Automatic Collision Evasion feature is similar to that of other collision avoidance systems that are used by companies like Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. These programs typically utilize radar and camera sensors to apply emergency brakes autonomously, though evasive steering in a manual driving mode is pioneered primarily by Tesla’s newest addition.
Tesla’s two defunct flagship models are getting a big upgrade
This tiny Tesla Cybertruck adjustment has big advantages
