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SpaceX ships 200th Falcon second stage, highlighting the flip-side of booster reuse
SpaceX has built and shipped its 200th Falcon second stage, highlighting the often underappreciated rocket’s record of achievement on the ground and in flight.
Approximately 13 years ago, in late 2009 or early 2010, SpaceX shipped the first flightworthy prototype of the first iteration of its Falcon 9 second stage. In June 2010, Falcon 9 lifted off on its inaugural test flight and, with the help of that second stage, successfully launched a boilerplate mockup of Dragon spacecraft into orbit. Since Falcon 9’s surprising inaugural success, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets have launched another 187 times for a total of 188 launches and 189 assembled rockets. Every one of those launches has required a new second stage, and all but one (Crew Dragon’s In-Flight Abort test) required a new Merlin Vacuum engine.
While SpaceX is most famous for the successful realization of rapidly reusable Falcon boosters, the company’s overall success is also inextricably linked to Falcon second stages, which are and always will be expended after every launch. For every spectacular Falcon booster landing or reuse record, a Falcon second stage either unceremoniously burns up in Earth’s atmosphere or finds itself stranded in orbit. As a result, even as SpaceX’s reusability has allowed it to launch more than ever before with a fleet of just 10-20 Falcon boosters, the company has had to expand the production of Falcon second stages extraordinary levels.
SpaceX just completed its 188th Falcon 9/Heavy launch, so the 200th flightworthy second stage and Merlin Vacuum (MVac) engine are probably scheduled to launch sometime in January 2023. In the last 365 days, SpaceX’s Falcon rockets have completed 59 successful orbital launches. Every launch has required a new second stage, so SpaceX, on average, has consistently built, shipped, and tested a new Falcon second stage every 6.2 days for more than a year.
Thanks to SpaceX’s record-breaking 2022 launch cadence, which has resulted in Falcon 9 launching more in one calendar year than any other rocket in history, the Falcon second stage has likely become the most-produced orbital rocket stage in decades. Barring surprises, SpaceX is on track to achieve CEO Elon Musk’s goal of 60 Falcon launches in 2022. But SpaceX isn’t done yet, and CEO Elon Musk says that the company is targeting “up to 100 launches” in 2023. After nearly doubling between early and late 2021, that will require Falcon second stage production to increase another ~67% year-over-year.
In its 12.5-year career, Falcon 9 has suffered three failures. In October 2012, on its third launch, one of Falcon 9’s nine Merlin 1C booster engines failed in flight. The main mission – a Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station – was saved by the second stage, which autonomously compensated for the lost performance, but a secondary payload (Orbcomm’s first OG2 satellite prototype) was lost as a result. In June 2015, a faulty strut inside Falcon 9’s second stage caused a helium pressure vessel to break loose and rupture, destroying the rocket mid-flight. And in September 2016, during a prelaunch static fire test, a similar pressure vessel inside an upgraded Falcon 9’s second stage spontaneously sparked, causing an explosion that destroyed the rocket while it was still on the ground.
As a result, while problems with Falcon second stages have technically caused both of Falcon 9’s only catastrophic failures, it’s still true that a free-flying Falcon second stage has never failed in flight. The same is true for the second stage’s Merlin Vacuum engine: over hundreds of burns and more than 70,000 seconds of operation, MVac has never failed in flight.
After Falcon 9’s successful November 3rd, 2022 launch of the Eutelsat Hotbird 13G communications satellite, SpaceX’s Falcon rocket family has completed 160 launches without failure, arguably making it the most reliable rocket family in history. To achieve that feat with its partially-reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, SpaceX has had to master reusable and expendable orbital rockets to a degree that only a few other companies or space agencies in history can claim to have matched or exceeded, and that none have achieved simultaneously.
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Tesla is showing us that Cybercab mass production is well underway
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla is showing us that Cybercab mass production is well underway
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
