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SpaceX rolls second-to-last ‘cryoshell’ to Starbase’s orbital tank farm
In the last two days, SpaceX has transported a giant mystery tank and the second-to-last ‘cryoshell’ to Starbase’s orbital tank farm, pushing Starship’s first orbital-class launch site a step closer to completion.
While the horizontal tank moved to the pad on Sunday remains decidedly mysterious, the ‘cryoshell’ is a well-understood component of SpaceX’s custom-built solution to Starship and Super Heavy propellant storage. Unlike virtually all other modern orbital launch sites, including SpaceX’s three Falcon pads and suborbital Starship test site, the company decided to build its first orbital-class Starship tank farm more or less from scratch. Though the number of off-the-shelf tanks continues to increase in recent weeks, the farm’s primary tanks – tasked with storage thousands of tons of liquid oxygen and methane propellant and liquid nitrogen coolant – are essentially stretched and lightly modified Starships.
Built in the same Starbase facilities with the same techniques and out of the same parts as Starship tanks, SpaceX’s custom storage tanks are likely cheaper than alternatives. However, they still amount to thin, uninsulated steel tanks – about as bad a vessel as it gets for the stable storage of cryogenic fluids. To solve the problem of insulation, SpaceX split the difference between pure vertical integration and a pure off-the-shelf solution and contracted with a third party to build massive ‘cryoshells’ – 12m (~40 ft) wide cylinders that ‘sleeve’ SpaceX’s custom 9m (~30 ft) wide storage tanks.
For the first of several anticipated orbital Starship launch pads and tank farms, that contractor built eight shells for SpaceX – seven sleeves and one million-gallon water tank. Over the last six months, SpaceX has installed the water tanks, completed all seven custom-built propellant storage tanks, and ‘sleeved’ five of those tanks. Beginning in September, two or three of the five sleeved tanks have even graduated into cryogenic proof testing.
Just days ago, SpaceX also began delivering liquid oxygen (LOx) to the orbital tank farm for the first time ever, suggesting that the company has begun the slow process of filling one, two, or even all three of the farm’s LOx tanks with a small army of tanker trucks.
On Monday, October 18th, SpaceX rolled the first of the last two remaining cryoshells from their build site to the orbital tank farm. Hours later, SpaceX attached a crane, lifted the sixth cryoshell, and sleeved GSE tank #8 – the second of two methane tanks. With that installation out of the way, there’s now a good chance that Starship’s first orbital tank farm will be structurally complete by the end of the month. With a vast majority of plumbing already in place and the process of filling the spaces between cryoshells and GSE tanks with insulating foam already underway, it’s possible that the farm will be ready to support some level of Super Heavy wet dress rehearsal and static fire testing sometime next month.
In the meantime, there remains the mystery of a pair of massive horizontal liquid methane (LCH4) tanks – the first of which was installed at the orbital tank farm on Sunday, October 17th. Likely capable of holding about as much fuel as each of SpaceX’s two custom-built LCH4 storage tanks, it’s unclear why the company appears to be effectively doubling the orbital pad’s LCH4 storage capacity with the addition of two new tanks purchased off the shelf.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
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PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
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VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
