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SpaceX Starbase facilities already taking advantage of new “Port Connector Road”
SpaceX’s Starbase facilities appear to have immediately begun to take advantage of a brand new “South Port Connector Road” built by the Port of Brownsville.
Construction of the two-mile-long ~$26 million Connector Road began in August 2020 and has long been assumed to be directly related to – or at least catalyzed by – SpaceX’s growing presence in the region. The new road will directly connect the Port of Brownsville to Highway 4, effectively offering SpaceX a direct line of access between Starbase – a South Texas Starship factory and launch site – and the Gulf of Mexico. While it’s difficult to find praise for taking almost two years to construct a more or less straight 1.9-mile-long (~3 km) stretch of road, the Connector should nonetheless offer SpaceX a number of new options.
The simplest and most obvious benefit: ease of transport. The Connector Road should cut off around 5-10 miles of the 15-20-mile drive needed to deliver something from the Port of Brownsville to Starbase (or vice-versa). In theory, the reduction in driving distance doesn’t actually matter much. The real boon comes from the fact that the road could almost entirely negate the need for deliveries to use urban roads.
If SpaceX has the ability to at least temporarily use dock space closest to the Connector Road, future deliveries could feasibly spend just a few hundred feet on city streets. The rest of the journey would be spent on relatively spacious highways. For most shipping, that would be mostly irrelevant, but it’s invaluable for a company like SpaceX that regularly needs (or wants) to transport massive objects by road. Transporting any load that is exceptionally wide, long, or tall can be a relatively painful ordeal, often requiring close coordination with local police or transportation departments to – at the minimum – ensure that it can be done safely, shadow the delivery, and manage traffic.
In extreme cases, the roadway itself might have to be temporarily modified to avoid damage to power lines, cables, street lights, signs, and more. In particularly dense areas, that can dramatically increase the cost of road transport to the point that even extreme alternatives – like building a rocket factory in the middle of nowhere, for example – become alluring.
Seemingly demonstrating its utility, SpaceX appears to have immediately taken advantage of the Port Connector Road almost as soon as it was ready to use. Around February 23rd, days before the road’s ribbon-cutting ceremony and official opening, an official image shared by the Port of Brownsville shows one of five newly installed Starbase propellant tanks heading from the port to Highway 4. While not a particularly challenging payload, the sheer length of the tank would have made any alternative route painful and likely required significant traffic control for any turns. Instead, the Port Connector Road likely made it a straight shot requiring little more than a private escort or two.
The real question is whether the new road will enable the transport of entire Starships or Super Heavy boosters – or even just subsections of the rockets – from Texas to Florida and whether SpaceX will actually choose to do so. Even with the Port Connector Road, some power lines, signs, and lights would likely need to be temporarily removed for SpaceX to transport something as tall and wide as a Starship or Super Heavy, but the breadth of the work required has likely been reduced by at least an order of magnitude. SpaceX has already broken ground on what is expected to become a Florida Starship factory but even partially completing that facility to the point that it can start to build rockets could easily take 6-12 months.
In short, the Port Connector Road’s benefits might be enough for SpaceX to conclude that the one-off transport of a handful of Starships and Super Heavy boosters is worth the lowered cost. That will be especially true if SpaceX is effectively forced to restart Starbase’s environmental review process, in which case Florida – not Texas – could become the preferred location for Starship’s first orbital test flights.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles.
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla has long emphasized that large-scale real-world data is central to improving its neural network-based approach to autonomy. Each mile driven with FSD (Supervised) engaged contributes additional edge cases and scenario training for the system.
The milestone also brings Tesla closer to a benchmark previously outlined by CEO Elon Musk. Musk has stated that roughly 10 billion miles of training data may be needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving at scale, citing the “long tail” of rare but complex driving situations that must be learned through experience.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable.
As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
With the fleet now past 8.4 billion cumulative miles, Tesla’s supervised system is approaching that threshold, even as regulatory approval for fully unsupervised deployment remains subject to further validation and oversight.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Elon Musk fired back at Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales after the longtime online encyclopedia leader dismissed xAI’s new AI-powered alternative, Grokipedia, as a “ridiculous” idea that is bound to fail.
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Wales made the comments while answering questions about Wikipedia’s neutrality. According to Wales, Wikipedia prides itself on neutrality.
“One of our core values at Wikipedia is neutrality. A neutral point of view is non-negotiable. It’s in the community, unquestioned… The idea that we’ve become somehow ‘Wokepidea’ is just not true,” Wales said.
When asked about potential competition from Grokipedia, Wales downplayed the situation. “There is no competition. I don’t know if anyone uses Grokipedia. I think it is a ridiculous idea that will never work,” Wales wrote.
After Grokipedia went live, Larry Sanger, also a co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote on X that his initial impression of the AI-powered Wikipedia alternative was “very OK.”
“My initial impression, looking at my own article and poking around here and there, is that Grokipedia is very OK. The jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually better than Wikipedia. But at this point I would have to say ‘maybe!’” Sanger stated.
Musk responded to Sanger’s assessment by saying it was “accurate.” In a separate post, he added that even in its V0.1 form, Grokipedia was already better than Wikipedia.
During a past appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has drifted from its original vision, citing concerns about how its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” framework categorizes publications by perceived credibility. As per Sanger, Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” list leans heavily left, with conservative publications getting effectively blacklisted in favor of their more liberal counterparts.
As of writing, Grokipedia has reportedly surpassed 80% of English Wikipedia’s article count.
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Tesla Sweden appeals after grid company refuses to restore existing Supercharger due to union strike
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons.
Tesla Sweden is seeking regulatory intervention after a Swedish power grid company refused to reconnect an already operational Supercharger station in Åre due to ongoing union sympathy actions.
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons. A temporary construction power cabinet supplying the station had fallen over, described by Tesla as occurring “under unclear circumstances.” The power was then cut at the request of Tesla’s installation contractor to allow safe repair work.
While the safety issue was resolved, the station has not been brought back online. Stefan Sedin, CEO of Jämtkraft elnät, told Dagens Arbete (DA) that power will not be restored to the existing Supercharger station as long as the electric vehicle maker’s union issues are ongoing.
“One of our installers noticed that the construction power had been backed up and was on the ground. We asked Tesla to fix the system, and their installation company in turn asked us to cut the power so that they could do the work safely.
“When everything was restored, the question arose: ‘Wait a minute, can we reconnect the station to the electricity grid? Or what does the notice actually say?’ We consulted with our employer organization, who were clear that as long as sympathy measures are in place, we cannot reconnect this facility,” Sedin said.
The union’s sympathy actions, which began in March 2024, apply to work involving “planning, preparation, new connections, grid expansion, service, maintenance and repairs” of Tesla’s charging infrastructure in Sweden.
Tesla Sweden has argued that reconnecting an existing facility is not equivalent to establishing a new grid connection. In a filing to the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate, the company stated that reconnecting the installation “is therefore not covered by the sympathy measures and cannot therefore constitute a reason for not reconnecting the facility to the electricity grid.”
Sedin, for his part, noted that Tesla’s issue with the Supercharger is quite unique. And while Jämtkraft elnät itself has no issue with Tesla, its actions are based on the unions’ sympathy measures against the electric vehicle maker.
“This is absolutely the first time that I have been involved in matters relating to union conflicts or sympathy measures. That is why we have relied entirely on the assessment of our employer organization. This is not something that we have made any decisions about ourselves at all.
“It is not that Jämtkraft elnät has a conflict with Tesla, but our actions are based on these sympathy measures. Should it turn out that we have made an incorrect assessment, we will correct ourselves. It is no more difficult than that for us,” the executive said.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
