News
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.
Elon Musk
Trump’s invite for Elon just reshuffled Tesla’s big Signature Delivery Event
Tesla rescheduled its final Model S farewell to May 20 after Musk joined Trump in China.
Tesla has rescheduled its Model S and Model X Signature Edition delivery event to Wednesday, May 20, 2026, after abruptly calling off the original May 12 celebration. The event will take place at Tesla’s factory at 45500 Fremont Boulevard in Fremont, California, the same location where the Model S first rolled off the line in 2012. Invitees received a follow-up email asking them to reconfirm attendance and download a new QR code ticket, with Tesla noting that all travel and accommodation expenses remain the buyer’s responsibility.
The reason behind the original cancellation came into focus the same day it was announced. President Trump invited Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, and executives from Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and Meta to join his trip to China this week for a summit with President Xi Jinping. The agenda covers trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan, and the Iran war, following weeks of escalating friction between Washington and Beijing over AI technology, sanctions, and rare earth exports. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am very much looking forward to my trip to China, an amazing Country, with a Leader, President Xi, respected by all.”
Tesla launches 200mph Model S “Gold” Signature in invite-only purchase
The vehicles at the center of all this are the last Model S and Model X units Tesla will ever build. Priced at $159,420 each, the 250 Model S and 100 Model X Signature Edition units come finished in Garnet Red with a one-year no-resale agreement, giving Tesla right of first refusal if the owner decides to sell. As Teslarati reported, the Model S defined Tesla’s early identity as a serious luxury automaker, and the Fremont factory line that built it is now being converted to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots.
Musk’s inclusion in the China delegation drew attention given his very public relationship with Trump, and the invitation signals the two have moved past and past grievances. Trump originally brought Musk on to lead the Department of Government Efficiency following his inauguration, and despite a sharp public dispute in mid-2025, the two have appeared together repeatedly in recent months. A seat on the China trip, the most diplomatically consequential visit of Trump’s current term, puts Musk back at the table on U.S. economic policy at a moment when Tesla’s China revenue remains one of the company’s most important financial pillars.
Tesla has launched a new solution to a rare but relevant Supercharger problem with a new Virtual Waitlist, a remedy that will solve sequencing confusion when there is a line to charge at one of the company’s locations.
Teslarati reported on what we called the Virtual Queue last month. In rare occurrences, there were physical altercations at Superchargers when someone might have cut in line to charge. Tesla started to develop some sort of system that would resolve this issue, and now it is finally rolling it out.
Tesla launches solution to end Supercharger fights once and for all
It will start with a Pilot Program, and Tesla is calling it the ‘Waitlist.’
Announced on May 11 on the official TeslaCharging X account, the pilot program is currently active at sites in Los Gatos, Mountain View, and San Francisco in California, as well as San Jose, CA, and the Bronx, NY (East Gun Hill Road). Drivers are encouraged to share feedback directly through the Tesla app to refine the system before a potential broader rollout.
We’re now testing a new waitlist feature at 5 Supercharger sites. Share feedback through the Tesla app to help us make it better.
– Los Gatos, CA – Los Gatos Boulevard
– Mountain View, CA – El Monte Avenue
– San Francisco, CA – Lombard Street
– San Jose, CA – Saratoga Avenue
-… pic.twitter.com/epTVzpJxgW— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) May 11, 2026
Tesla released the video above to showcase the feature, which automatically joins the waitlist when your vehicle has the Supercharger with the wait as the destination in the navigation. There is also a notification that lets you know your place in line.
In this specific example, the video shows that the wait is less than five minutes, and that there are two cars ahead of the one in the video:
Credit: Tesla
Having a wait at a Supercharger is relatively rare, but it does happen. It is even more frequent now that there are more EVs allowed to use the Supercharger Network. Those non-Tesla EVs can also join the queue, as Tesla added in its social media release of the pilot program that they can join the waitlist using the Tesla app.
The release of this program should help alleviate the rare risk of incidents at Superchargers. Tesla will expand this program as it sees fit, and it gathers valuable data and reviews from users.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Optimus is already benefiting investors, top Wall Street firm says
Piper Sandler has updated its detailed valuation model for Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), concluding that at recent share prices around $400–$420, investors are essentially acquiring the company’s ambitious Optimus humanoid robot project at no extra cost.
Tesla Optimus is already benefiting investors from a fiscal standpoint, at least that is what Alexander Potter at Piper Sandler, a top Wall Street firm covering the company, says.
Piper Sandler has updated its detailed valuation model for Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), concluding that at recent share prices around $400–$420, investors are essentially acquiring the company’s ambitious Optimus humanoid robot project at no extra cost.
Analyst Alexander Potter, in the firm’s latest “Definitive Guide to Investing in Tesla,” built a comprehensive framework covering 17 separate product lines.
This granular approach values Tesla’s core businesses—including electric vehicles, energy storage, Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, in-house insurance, Supercharging network, and a standalone robotaxi operation—at approximately $400 per share, without assigning any value to Optimus or related inference-as-a-service opportunities.
“At $400/share, we think investors can buy Optimus for ‘free,’” Potter stated in the note. Piper Sandler maintained its Overweight rating on Tesla shares and a $500 price target, which implicitly attributes roughly $100 per share to the robot-related businesses— a figure the analyst views as potentially conservative.
The updated model incorporates elements often overlooked by other sell-side analysts, such as detailed forecasts for Tesla’s insurance operations, Supercharger revenue, and a distinct valuation for the robotaxi business separate from FSD software licensing. It also accounts for Tesla’s 2025 CEO compensation plan for the first time.
Potter acknowledged that his estimates for 2026 and 2027 fall below Wall Street consensus, citing factors like declining deliveries from certain discontinued models and reduced regulatory credit income.
However, he expressed limited concern, noting that traditional vehicle delivery metrics are expected to matter less over time as FSD subscriber growth and robotaxi deployment metrics gain prominence. On Optimus specifically, Potter suggested the humanoid robot program, combined with inference services, “arguably will be worth more than Tesla’s other businesses combined,” though the firm has not yet produced formal long-term forecasts for these segments.
Tesla shares have traded near the $400 range in recent sessions, reflecting ongoing investor focus on the company’s autonomous driving progress and expansion into robotics and AI. The Optimus project remains in early development stages, with Tesla aiming to deploy the robots initially for internal factory tasks before broader commercial applications.
This Piper Sandler analysis highlights the growing emphasis among some investors and analysts on Tesla’s long-term technology platform potential beyond its current automotive and energy businesses.
As with any forward-looking valuation, outcomes will depend on execution timelines, technological breakthroughs, regulatory approvals for autonomous systems, and market adoption of humanoid robotics—areas that carry significant uncertainty and execution risk.
The note underscores a common theme in Tesla coverage: differing views on how to quantify emerging high-growth opportunities like robotics within the company’s overall enterprise value. Investors are advised to consider their own risk tolerance and conduct thorough due diligence regarding these speculative elements.
Trump’s invite for Elon just reshuffled Tesla’s big Signature Delivery Event
Tesla launches its solution to rare but relevant Supercharger problem
