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SpaceX ramps Starship hiring as Elon Musk talks Texas rocket factory's "awesome" progress
After several successful tests last month, Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s South Texas Starship team is looking to rapidly expand in order to aggressively ramp up Starship manufacturing in a sign that the nascent rocket factory is making excellent progress.
Almost immediately after SpaceX successfully wrapped up its first and second explosive Starship tank tests last month, the company’s Boca Chica, Texas presence started to take on a new atmosphere, reminiscent of the rapid progress made at a since-mothballed Florida Starship facility. Perhaps thanks to the fact that SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship facilities are adjacent to a dedicated test and launch facility just a mile down the road, it’s looking much less likely that a similar fate will befall its Texas presence.
Instead, SpaceX’s successful Starship tank tests – intentionally destroying two massive propellant tanks – are a testament to the progress the next-generation rocket is making in Texas. In fact, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has effectively stated that after the most recent tank test, the company is now ready to shift gears and start building the first space-bound Starship prototypes, while the last week or two of SpaceX’s visible Texas activities make it clear that that shift is already well underway.
In simple terms, SpaceX now appears to be moving full speed ahead in a bid to manufacture, assemble, and test the first flightworthy, full-scale Starship prototypes. It’s worth noting that CEO Elon Musk has underestimated the challenge at hand several times in the last 18 or so months of Starship development, frequently suggesting that the first full-scale prototype of the spacecraft would be ready for a challenging flight test and maybe even its first orbital flights as early as 2019.
For a number of reasons, those ambitious targets were not met. To Musk’s credit, the executive is at least conscious of his tendency to be wildly optimistic when it comes to schedules and has effectively tacked on an asterisk that the schedules and deadlines he often publicizes tend more along the lines of “this time-frame is technically possible without breaking the laws of physics” than anything verging on pragmatism. With challenges as complex as those faced in spaceflight, let alone massive, fully-reusable rockets like Starship, it’s hard to be surprised that practical deadlines tend to be miles away from theoretically-possible minimums.
As such, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to feel a bit like the townspeople with a boy crying wolf, but there are arguably several reasons for optimism, this time around. Most importantly, as partially pictured above, SpaceX has completed four intentionally destructive tests with full-scale Starship hardware in just the last 2.5 months. Deemed unfit for flight, SpaceX pressurized Starship Mk1 with liquid nitrogen until it burst in November 2019, reaching an estimated 3-5 bar (45-75 psi).
SpaceX spent the following month upgrading both the methods and facilities used to build Starship prototypes in South Texas – a process that is still very much ongoing. However, two recent tests of Starship tanks built with some of those new methods and facilities have unequivocally proven that great progress is being made. The first ‘test tank’ managed 7.1 bar (105 psi) before it burst, while a second tank completed less than three weeks later reached 7.5 bar (110 psi) with water and 8.5 bar (125 psi) with liquid nitrogen on January 28th. Between those tests, Musk revealed that 6 bar was the bare minimum necessary for orbital Starship flights, while 8.5 bar would potentially offer the safety margins needed for crewed Starship flights.
In other words, SpaceX’s last two tank tests have effectively proved that – even with facilities and methods only partially upgraded – the company is ready to begin manufacturing the first truly flight-rated Starship prototypes. In response, Musk recently stated that he was going “max hardcore on” Starship design and production in Boca Chica and revealed that SpaceX would host a second South Texas jobs fair in three weeks to help rapidly staff its growing rocket factory.
Looking at the progress SpaceX has made in just the last week, it’s hard to fault Musk’s brimming enthusiasm. Now breaking in new semi-automated welding machines, upgraded production equipment, and two massive sprung structures (i.e. tents), SpaceX engineers and technicians are churning out improved steel rings, tank domes (bulkheads), smaller propellant tanks, and more at a breakneck pace relative to the last year of Starship work. Additionally, at least six of those new rings have been stacked together in two sections, likely representing the effective birth of the first flightworthy Starship – ‘SN01’.
With SpaceX’s new enclosed facilities, much of its South Texas work is now hidden. Still, from what’s visible, it’s safe to say that the company is well its way to completing the first flight – and possibly orbit – worthy Starship prototypes in the near future.
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Tesla has spent years trying to engineer its way out of the automotive paint shop, one of the most expensive, space-consuming, and environmentally costly steps in vehicle manufacturing. With the Cybercab, Tesla confirmed on X this week that a new reaction injection molding process will embed color directly into the panel itself during production.
“Our new reaction injection molding (RIM) process shrinks Cybercab paint cycles from hours to minutes. This cuts those parts’ manufacturing and supply chain emissions by 35% and eliminating 100% of paint volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in traditional paint methods.” noted Tesla.
While the RIM process isn’t necessarily new and has existed since the 1960s, what makes Tesla’s application notable is how it is being used specifically for exterior body panels that traditionally required a separate paint process after forming.
Tesla’s RIM approach integrates the color directly into the panel material during the molding process itself. The pigment is part of the polymer mix injected into the mold, meaning the panel comes out of the mold already colored, with no separate paint application required. The clear coat or protective layer can be applied at the mold stage or through a much faster post-process than traditional multi-stage painting. Tesla claims this compresses what was a multi-hour paint cycle into minutes per panel.
Tesla’s obsession with killing the paint shop is one of the most consistent threads running through the company’s manufacturing philosophy going back years. As far back as 2018, Musk was trimming paint color options to simplify production, tweeting at the time: “Moving 2 of 7 Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing.” Two years later, in a 2020 Automotive News interview, Musk laid out his broader vision, saying he believed Tesla factories could one day be 1,000 times more efficient than conventional plants, and pointing to the paint shop as one of the biggest sources of waste, cost, and complexity. The Cybertruck was the most extreme expression of that thinking. Tesla chose an unpainted stainless steel exterior partly because it would eliminate the need for a $200 million paint facility at Gigafactory Texas. The stainless approach proved harder and more expensive than anticipated, but the underlying ambition never changed. The Cybercab is what happens when that same ambition meets a manufacturing process that delivers on it.
Lifestyle
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
Tesla’s app now shows a live indicator when your car is actively driving itself.
A recent Tesla app update, released last week (4.58.5), gives visibility on whether a vehicle is navigating in its semi-autonomous mode or being drive by a human driver. The updated app now displays a live “Self-Driving” indicator in bright blue text directly beneath the vehicle’s speed readout whenever Full Self-Driving is actively engaged, along with the signature glowing blue navigation path that FSD users see on the main touchscreen. It is a small visual update with meaningful implications for how Tesla owners monitor their vehicles remotely.
The feature was first spotted in the wild by X user Jordan Camina, who shared video of a Hardware 3 Model S displaying the new animation through the app while driving. That detail is significant because it confirms the update is not limited to newer HW4 vehicles. It works across hardware generations, and Tesla confirmed it will eventually support all vehicles regardless of chip platform once both the app and vehicle software are updated. The vehicle side requires software version 2026.20.6.1, which has reached nearly 40% of the fleet so far, as monitored by NotaTeslaApp.
The feature makes the most practical sense when viewed through the lens of Tesla’s expanding robotaxi operation. In a robotaxi context, the owner of a vehicle generating ride revenue has a direct financial and safety interest in knowing whether their car is operating under autonomous control at any given moment. The app’s new FSD indicator gives fleet owners exactly that visibility, the same way a logistics company monitors whether a delivery driver is following the planned route. It also carries implications for Tesla’s insurance model. Tesla’s own insurance product prices premiums in part based on FSD engagement rates, and real-time visibility into when FSD is active creates a feedback loop that could eventually tie directly into policy pricing. For individual owners who have opted their personal vehicles into the robotaxi network, the update effectively turns the Tesla app into a fleet management dashboard, one that tells you whether your car is earning money, whether it is driving itself to do it, and whether everything is operating the way it should from wherever you happen to be.
Tesla expands Robotaxi to Florida, marking its third state for autonomy
As Teslarati has reported, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami this summer, a milestone that makes a remote FSD status indicator significantly more practical than a cosmetic feature. When a vehicle is operating as a robotaxi without a driver present, the owner or fleet operator needs a reliable way to confirm autonomy is engaged. The app now provides exactly that.
As noted by NotATeslaApp, The update also arrived alongside a hint buried in the same app version that Tesla plans to use the cabin camera to verify driver identity before FSD can be activated. Pairing identity verification with a live autonomy status indicator points toward the infrastructure Tesla is building for a fleet of driverless vehicles that owners can monitor the way you would track a package delivery.
Elon Musk
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
California passed a $135 million EV incentive that rewards Rivian and Lucid while sidelining Tesla
California just drew a line in the EV incentive sand to put Tesla on the wrong side of it. The state recently passed a $135 million program offering first-time electric vehicle buyers a direct incentive with no application required, but the rules were written in a way that leaves Tesla at a structural disadvantage compared to Rivian and Lucid.
The program caps eligible vehicles at $50,000 for new EVs and $25,000 for used ones. That pricing threshold rules out a significant portion of Tesla’s lineup, though some lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y configurations would still qualify. California-based automakers are exempt from the price cap entirely, regardless of what their vehicles cost. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, and Lucid, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, both benefit from that exemption. Rivian’s R2 starts at roughly $45,000 but has versions above the cap. Lucid’s Air and Gravity start at $70,990 and $79,990 respectively, well above any threshold a non-California company would face.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla built its reputation and a significant portion of its early market share in California, where EV adoption has consistently led the nation. The company operates its original factory in Fremont, California, and the state was home to Tesla’s headquarters for most of its existence. That changed in 2021 when Tesla moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Since then, the relationship between the company and California Governor Gavin Newsom has been openly adversarial, with Musk and Newsom trading public criticism on multiple occasions.
California’s EV incentive landscape has shifted repeatedly in recent years, and Tesla has previously lost eligibility for state-level programs as its vehicles exceeded income-adjusted price thresholds. The federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which Tesla models have qualified for and lost depending on policy cycles, is no longer available after it expired without renewal, making state-level programs more meaningful to buyers than they have been in years.
The practical impact for buyers is more nuanced than the headline suggests. California residents purchasing a Tesla under $50,000 for the first time can still access the incentive. But the exemption written for California-based manufacturers is a structural advantage that rewards where a company plants its headquarters flag rather than where it builds its products, and Tesla moved that flag to Texas.
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
Tesla app update makes Robotaxi ownership make a lot more sense
