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SpaceX’s Starbase environmental review suffers third delay
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that the completion of a crucial ‘environmental assessment’ SpaceX needs to begin orbital-class Starship launch attempts out of South Texas has been delayed for the third time.
Official known as a programmatic environmental assessment or PEA, the FAA says it started the process in late June 2021 with the goal of verifying that SpaceX’s Starbase orbital launch site (OLS) was mostly benign before the end of 2021. Compared to a regular EA, the programmatic nature of SpaceX’s Starbase review would theoretically allow the company to start small and gradually expand and add new facilities and capabilities without having to restart the arduous review process for each change.
Along those lines, SpaceX’s first draft PEA requested permission for no more than five full-stack Starship launches per year compared to the maximum of 12 Falcon 9 launches or nine Falcon 9 and three Falcon Heavy launches out of Boca Chica that SpaceX had already received permission for from the FAA in 2014.
Unfortunately, even at the time that the start of the process was announced, completing a full PEA in half a year was already unbelievably optimistic. No comparable review, of which there are effectively none, has been completed anywhere close to that quickly. In the face of substantial local opposition, like in the case of Georgia’s Camden Spaceport, even an FAA environmental review for a relatively small rocket launch facility can make little progress after years of tooth-and-nail fighting.
However, the best possible comparison has always been SpaceX’s own environmental assessment for an almost identical orbital-class Starship launch site at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Despite the fact that no untouched ground would be broken and even with the apparent might of NASA behind it, it took the FAA and SpaceX about a full year to complete a Pad 39A EA for up to 24 Starship launches per year. As such, the idea that the FAA would be able to complete a PEA for Boca Chica Starship launches in six months was always almost unimaginable.
It should come as no surprise, then, that nine months after SpaceX and the FAA began their Starbase PEA, they appear to be only marginally closer to completing the review. Days before the original December 31st, 2021 deadline, the FAA announced a delay to February 28th, 2022. On February 14th, the FAA announced a second delay to March 28th. Most recently, on March 25th, the FAA announced a third delay to April 29th.
Put simply, the FAA is effectively saying that it is actually further away from completing SpaceX’s South Texas Starship PEA than it was in December 2021. The extraordinarily opaque nature of the process also means that anyone outside of the loop or without internal sources is left to simply guess what is causing those delays or why the FAA keeps pushing the goalposts back just one or two months at a time when it’s unclear that anyone can actually predict when the process will be completed.
Without journalists filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the full extent of public knowledge about what is causing those delays would be the FAA’s scant few statements on the process. The most valuable information provided thus far is that the FAA is “reviewing the Final PEA,” which does seem to imply some degree of progress. Nonetheless, the agency still included a boilerplate statement noting that it’s “completing consultation and coordination with agencies at the local, State, and Federal level,” making it hard to actually say if any progress has been made. In February 2022, the FAA said it was “continuing consultation and coordination with other agencies.”
In December 2021, the FAA stated that it was “continuing consultation and coordination with other agencies at the local, State, and Federal level” while “SpaceX continues to prepare the Final PEA for…FAA review and acceptance.” By using such vague and unspecific language, the FAA makes what little it does say virtually impossible to parse and barely better than nothing. Solely thanks to documents secured through FOIA, we know that the FAA itself may not actually be to blame for most or all of the PEA’s four months of delays.
Instead, the US Department of the Interior (DOI), Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), and National Park Services (NPS) may be partially responsible through their required coordination with the FAA, which they appear to be taking full advantage of to exert some form of control over the outcome. Bureaucrats are being bureaucratic, in other words.
Outside of email chains and boardrooms, however, it’s no longer clear that completing the PEA and securing an FAA launch license are the limiting factor for the first orbital Starship test flights. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently announced that SpaceX is changing the prototypes assigned to the first full-stack launch – likely to Booster 7 and Ship 24. Super Heavy B7 has yet to begin any kind of testing and Starship S24 is still in several pieces, so it’s safe to say that SpaceX’s new pair are months of concerted testing away from launch readiness.
If anything goes wrong during those tests, any significant design issues are discovered, or any damage is caused, it’s entirely possible that what Elon Musk says could take as few as two months will actually take more like four to six. Only time will tell. For now, the FAA likely has a few months before Starship’s South Texas PEA and full-stack launch license truly become the limiting factor for the rocket’s first orbital launch attempt.
Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
Tesla Robotaxi services in Austin have been operating since last Summer, but Tesla has admittedly been delayed in its expansion of the geofence, fleet size, and other details in a bid to prioritize safety as new technology rolls out.
But those barriers are being broken with new guardrails being removed from the program.
Tesla has achieved a significant advancement in its autonomous ride-hailing program. As of May 4, the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, has begun operating unsupervised during evening hours for the first time. This expansion moves beyond previous limitations that restricted unsupervised service to daylight hours, typically ending in mid-afternoon.
Tesla Robotaxi in Austin is operating unsupervised in the evenings for the first time today.
Previously in Austin, unsupervised operation ended mid-afternoon
— Robotaxi Tracker (@RtaxiTracker) May 4, 2026
The change brings Austin in line with operations in Dallas and Houston. Those cities have supported evening unsupervised runs since their initial launches in April, and both recently received additions of new unsupervised vehicles to their fleets. This coordinated progress across Texas strengthens Tesla’s regional presence and provides a broader testing ground for the technology.
This milestone carries substantial weight in the development of autonomous vehicles. Extending operations into low-light conditions meaningfully expands the Robotaxi’s operational design domain (ODD)—the specific environments and scenarios in which the system is approved to operate safely without human intervention.
Nighttime driving presents unique technical demands: diminished visibility, headlight glare from oncoming traffic, reduced contrast for identifying pedestrians and lane markings, and greater variability in camera sensor exposure.
Tesla’s pure vision approach, powered by neural networks trained on vast real-world datasets rather than lidar or pre-mapped routes, must handle these variables reliably. Demonstrating consistent unsupervised performance after sunset validates the robustness of the end-to-end AI stack and its ability to generalize across diverse lighting conditions.
Beyond technical validation, the expansion holds important operational and economic implications. Evening hours often coincide with peak urban demand for rides, including commutes, dining, and entertainment outings.
Enabling service during these periods increases daily vehicle utilization, allowing each Robotaxi to generate more revenue while gathering additional high-value training data. Higher utilization accelerates the virtuous cycle of data collection, model improvement, and further ODD growth.
Looking ahead, this step paves the way for more ambitious rollouts. Success in low-light environments positions Tesla to pursue near-24-hour operations, potentially integrating highways and expanding into varied weather patterns. Regulators worldwide frequently demand evidence of safe performance across day-night cycles before granting wider approvals.
Proven capability in Texas could expedite deployments in planned cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas during the first half of 2026.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
Moreover, scaling evening service supports Tesla’s long-term vision of a high-efficiency robotaxi network. Greater fleet productivity lowers the cost per mile, making autonomous mobility more accessible and competitive against traditional ride-hailing.
As the company iterates on software updates informed by nighttime data, reliability is expected to compound rapidly, unlocking denser urban coverage and longer-distance trips.
In summary, the introduction of an unsupervised evening Robotaxi service in Austin represents more than an incremental schedule adjustment. It signals a critical maturation of the underlying technology and sets the foundation for broader geographic and temporal expansion.
With Texas operations gaining momentum, Tesla is steadily advancing toward transforming urban transportation at scale.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Tesla owners keep coming back for more
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
