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SpaceX to replace Falcon 9’s titanium grid fins with steel on Starship’s Super Heavy booster
Following a question on Twitter about how SpaceX intends to manufacture the truly massive grid fins shown in renders of Starship’s Super Heavy booster, CEO Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX will build them out of welded steel.
For the first several years of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy booster recovery operations, SpaceX built grid fins – used for maneuvering the rockets at high speeds – out of aluminum. With Falcon 9 Block 5, aluminum grid fins were phased out entirely in favor of larger titanium fins, necessitated by exceptionally high-speed reentries that nearly melted through the aluminum fins on several occasions. Now, SpaceX wants to move from titanium to steel fins for its next-generation Starship launch vehicle.
Welded steel— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2019
In response to the Twitter user’s question, Musk simply stated that Super Heavy’s grid fins would be manufactured out of “welded steel”, certainly keeping with the CEO’s now well-known love for the material. In October 2018, Musk finally managed to convince most of the senior engineers reporting to him that – despite years of work and full-scale testing – SpaceX needed to radically redesign Starship.
Prior to this radical change, SpaceX had spent at least 2-3 years on a Starship design (formerly Big F_____ Spaceship; BFS) made almost entirely out of carbon fiber composites, an extremely lightweight material that can be optimized for high strength. However, as Musk ultimately concluded in late 2018, although carbon composites are undeniably light and strong (optimal for spaceflight), they have extremely low heat tolerance and can react violently with supercooled liquid oxygen. Built almost entirely out of aluminum alloys with similarly low melting points, Falcon 9 has also struggled with the challenges posed by material choices, made far more difficult by the need to recover and reuse orbital-class rocket stages.
Musk ultimately decided that redesigning Starship with steel (alloys with particularly high melting points and good strength) was the right way to go. According to Musk, the high-quality carbon fiber composites SpaceX was originally pursuing cost something like $130,000 per metric ton, translating to a truly gobsmacking cost – accounting for unavoidable wastage – of $400M-$500M or more just to buy the materials needed to build a single Starship and Super Heavy booster. Steel, on the other hand, is quite literally 50 times cheaper, costing SpaceX around $2500 per ton, or as little as $10M in structural materials for each ship/booster pair.
Man of Stainless Steel
Speaking at a September 28th presentation on the 2019 status of Starship’s design, CEO Elon Musk couldn’t praise his decision to move to stainless steel enough, describing it as likely being the single best design decision he has ever made. It remains to be seen if the eccentric self-taught engineer’s decision was the correct one, but the progress SpaceX has made in just 10-11 months is undeniable. SpaceX has gone from a nearly blank slate to Starhopper’s 150m (500ft) test flight in ~6 months and gone from nothing to Starship Mk1 in another 6 or so months.
According to Musk, the properties of stainless steel – mainly a high melting point/working temperature and a tendency to strengthen at cryogenic temperatures – mean that the relatively heavy material is able to produce a launch vehicle that could eventually be far lighter and higher-performance than one made with carbon composites (BFR) or aluminum alloys (Falcon 9). Thanks to those properties, Starship/Super Heavy will become much stronger when filled with cold propellant and will also require little to no external heat shielding on its leeward half, whereas a reusable Al/composite rocket would require major thermal protection on nearly all exposed surfaces.
As part of the move to remove any ultra-expensive nonessential materials from the designs of Starship and Super Heavy, Musk has apparently also turned his gaze on the booster’s grid fins. As described at the top of this article, SpaceX replaced Falcon 9’s aluminum grid fins with titanium fins, requiring the company to create the largest single-piece titanium casting in the world. Musk has repeatedly indicated that each grid fin is extremely expensive.
In light of their expense, Musk (or SpaceX) has seemingly decided that future (larger?) SpaceX rockets will try to avoid large, titanium castings. Super Heavy nevertheless still needs massive grid fins: official renders published by SpaceX last month revealed a new diamond shape for the booster’s fins, and Musk later took to Twitter to reveal that they would be made out of welded steel instead of titanium.
Based on SpaceX’s official 2019 Super Heavy renders, the booster’s grid fins measure approximately 7m by 3m (23 ft by 10 ft), dwarfing Falcon 9’s titanium fins (perhaps 2m by 1.2m) with something like 8-10 times the surface area. Although 301-series stainless steel has a melting point and heat capacity roughly 15% lower than Grade 5 titanium, its strength characteristics are otherwise similar, while also remaining mechanically functional at almost three times the working temperature of titanium (840C vs. 330C).
Most importantly, not only is 301 steel roughly 15-20 times cheaper than titanium, but the process of fabricating large steel components – particularly with welding instead of casting – is dramatically faster, easier, and cheaper than working with and forming titanium. With their reasonably similar properties and the increased size of Super Heavy, it’s likely that steel grid fins would exhibit little to no ablation during even the hottest atmospheric reentries, and it would nevertheless be extremely easy and cheap to either repair or replace fins in the unlikely event of damage.
Given just how quickly and relatively easily SpaceX has built full-scale flight hardware out of steel and assuming there are no technical showstoppers caused by changing scales, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see SpaceX fabricate and test welded steel grid fins on Falcon 9 boosters in the near future.
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Tesla has launched a new Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y vehicles in the United States, meaning you can now power devices like laptops or light strings with your vehicle’s battery.
It appears the capability will be available for any Model Y Premium trim, including those that were purchased prior to the Adapter being launched. It will also only impact Juniper Model Y vehicles, so the first-gen owners will unfortunately not have access to this capability.
If your Model Y was purchased before Tesla renamed the trim levels to “Premium” and “Standard,” it does not seem to be compatible. My Model Y is technically a Premium build, as it is the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive. However, Tesla says it is not compatible with my vehicle.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Outlet Adapter for Model Y Premium in the U.S., enabling V2L capability for all Premium trims (that’s what it appears to be as it is available for purchase with all Premium trims)
It’s available for $80. 2.4kW max power and rated for 120v, 20A pic.twitter.com/lDxlVIk5s8
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 14, 2026
For $80, you can now utilize your car as a portable charger for small appliances or devices. This is perfect for things like tailgates, concerts, or camping, as you can now plug in devices that you might use. Those string lights for camping? That laptop for the other games that are on at the tailgate?
They’ll both utilize energy from your Tesla’s battery to be powered. This is the first time Tesla has expanded the capability to vehicles outside of the Model Y Performance and Cybertruck. However, this feature has been highly requested by owners for an extended period of time.
Tesla launched the Outlet Adapter in China last year:
Tesla China rolls out Model Y L V2L adapter, and it’s free for early owners
You will need the Mobile Connector to operate the Outlet Adapter: the Outlet Adapter will plug into the main housing of the Mobile Connector, where the appropriate adapter to charge your vehicle will plug in.
It is rated for 120 volts and 20 amps, and has a max power rating of 2.4kW.
You can buy it here from Tesla for $80.
Tesla is nearing its long-awaited unveiling of the all-electric Tesla Roadster, a new report from The Information claims, as the company has said several times this year that the event would take place “soon.”
Now, it appears there is movement on Tesla’s end regarding when it will happen.
The report says that Tesla will unveil the Roadster as soon as this month with a SpaceX version that will utilize cold-gas thrusters to help the vehicle float for a short period of time. This is something CEO Elon Musk has talked about with the Roadster for years.
🚨 The Information is reporting this morning that Tesla is ready to unveil the “flying” Roadster as soon as this month
It’s almost here, folks. pic.twitter.com/IdL4atsucQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 14, 2026
Additionally, due to the delays, Tesla explored “a variety of designs” for the Roadster, potentially planning to abandon the design it showed off for the first time in 2017 and adopting an entirely new aesthetic.
According to The Information, Tesla considered utilizing a repurposed Model S Plaid and even wanted to upgrade the look to something like a Lamborghini Countach.
We’ve heard all of these things before, including teases about the date and how “soon” the Roadster will finally be ready to be shown off to the world (for the second time). Musk said that the event would occur in April, then May, then Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen continued to say it would be coming “soon.”
We do expect to see the Roadster by the end of the year, and now with this new report swirling, it appears it could be sooner rather than later.
The wait has been incredibly long, but there is likely a good reason for it. Tesla’s desire to make the Roadster the craziest vehicle on the road was non-negotiable, and it likely took a lot of time and resources to develop and perfect into something that was safe and suitable for a vehicle like this.
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Tesla finally got its Nevada Robotaxi Permit but with a few catches hard to miss
Nevada granted Tesla’s robotaxi permit, but capped the fleet at just ten vehicles for now.
Tesla has received its robotaxi permit in Nevada, more than two months after regulators closed the public comment period on the company’s application. News of the approval surfaced Wednesday night when Tesla investor and longtime company watcher Sawyer Merritt posted a copy of the interim order, and the Nevada Transportation Authority’s own carrier registry now lists the permit, AVNC Permit 002 under Docket 26-05015, as active for Tesla Robotaxi, LLC.
Tesla asked Nevada in June for authority to run up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County within a year, however the permit the NTA issued is initially capping Tesla at ten fully autonomous vehicles and confines them to a defined geofence along the Las Vegas Strip corridor. Any expansion of that operating area, or any increase to the fleet size, requires the NTA’s approval first.
Tesla has received its Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada.
The Nevada Transportation Authority says that operations are limited to a maximum fleet of 10 fully autonomous vehicles and shall be conducted only within the Authority-approved Operational Design… https://t.co/Cxfd6GIfDk pic.twitter.com/iOO6wSZkHF
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 13, 2026
The order also sets rules that look more restrictive than what Tesla runs in Austin. Rides are barred on roads with posted speed limits above 45 miles per hour, pickups are off limits within a quarter mile of Harry Reid International Airport without separate authorization, and every vehicle has to carry visible “Robotaxi” markings while notifying riders before each trip that no one is driving. The order also requires “appropriate human supervision”, language that suggests Nevada isn’t ready to let Tesla offer the rides without a safety monitor that it has run in parts of Austin since January. As with standard protocol with robotaxi services, Tesla must report any accident, system failure, or vehicle that becomes stranded on a Nevada road within five business days.
Tesla is entering a market Nevada already knows well. Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi company, has run its own autonomous vehicle permit in the state since last year, building up to roughly 100 vehicles and 350,000 rides along the Strip. That history likely explains why the NTA started Tesla at ten cars rather than the fleet size the company asked for. The agency has a template for scaling a permit up once a company proves out its safety record.
Tesla’s Nevada application first surfaced in June, when the company filed for the permit alongside plans for a maintenance hub in southwest Las Vegas. The company has said it won’t meaningfully scale its robotaxi fleet anywhere until FSD v15 ships, expected in late 2026 or early 2027, which makes the ten vehicle cap less of a constraint today than it might look on paper. For now, Tesla has the legal right to start Nevada rides. Whether it starts before FSD v15 arrives is a separate question the permit doesn’t answer.
Tesla launches V2L Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y in the U.S.
Tesla Roadster unveiling nears, and it will fly: The Information
