News
Tesla Giga Berlin seems on track to start Model Y production later than Giga Texas
In a recent statement to German media, Brandenburg Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach stated that he expects the final approval for Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin facility to be released sometime in the fourth quarter of 2021. If this comes to pass, Model Y production in the facility would be starting several months or so later than expected, which may not seem like too much of a delay. It may, however, result in Gigafactory Texas, a facility that started its buildout several months after the Germany-based factory, starting its Model Y production earlier than its Germany-based sibling.
As per a report from Berlin.de, Steinbach stated that the principle of quality over speed applies in the approval process of Gigafactory Berlin. “The principle of quality over speed clearly applies in the approval process. The top priority is that the decision of the State Office for the Environment is ultimately legally secure. And the factory can only be opened once a positive approval decision has been made,” the minister said.
If the State Environment Agency refuses to grant Gigafactory Berlin’s final approval, Tesla would have to dismantle all the structures it has built on the massive Grünheide complex, which includes a plant designed to produce the Tesla Model Y. Tesla would also have to replace the monoculture forest that it cut down in the area. Steinbach, however, noted that he considers a final veto from the Environmental Agency to be practically impossible. “This is not about the approval of a new nuclear power plant,” he said.
Inasmuch as Giga Berlin is supported by the Economics Minister, there is no denying that the project is meeting a substantial amount of pushback from local entities. Legal challenges from the Naturschutzbund (Nabu) and the Green League over Giga Berlin’s latest early approval aside, Tesla is also being investigated by the Brandenburg’s State Environment Agency for allegedly constructing a refrigerant tank (which may still be empty) without permission. The complaints about Giga Berlin’s alleged “illegal” tanks were filed by the two environmental groups, and are cruelty being handled by the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG).
Similar issues have so far not plagued Gigafactory Texas. Since its announcement on the Q2 2020 earnings call, Giga Texas’ construction has been relatively smooth. It’s been roughly 350 days since the massive Texas-based facility was announced, and so far, trial runs for parts of the plant’s Model Y production line are already underway. Elon Musk even noted on Twitter back in April that limited production of the Model Y would begin in Gigafactory Texas this year, with volume production hitting its pace in 2022.
What is quite interesting is that Gigafactory Texas’s footprint exceeds that of Gigafactory Berlin. Tesla adopted a different pattern for Giga Texas by building large sections of the full factory immediately, and so far, such a strategy seems to be working well. However, what truly differentiates the Texas plant from its Germany-based counterpart is the amount of pushback against the project as a whole. While Giga Berlin could barely move these days without encountering loud complaints and legal actions from the Naturschutzbund (Nabu) and the Green League — or local news agencies for that matter — Giga Texas has so far been met with support.
This is quite an unfortunate situation overall, as Gigafactory Berlin actually started out strong. Following its initial announcement in November 2019, Giga Berlin’s first months showed a lot of progress, so much so that it seemed like the facility may be built faster than Gigafactory Shanghai, whose Model 3 factory was built and launched in less than a year. But just like Giga Texas, Gigafactory Shanghai was also constructed without much drama. Since its groundbreaking in January 2019, Tesla’s China-based facility has grown steadily, and today, it is already poised to export the Made-in-China Model Y to European territories.
Tesla opened orders for the Model Y in Europe recently, and the all-electric crossovers would likely be coming from Giga Shanghai. One could almost assume that Tesla opted for this strategy due to the delays in Giga Berlin. The Grünheide facility, after all, was initially expected to start Model Y production sometime in the latter half of 2021. But if Brandenburg’s Economics Minister optimistically believes that Giga Berlin’s final approval would be granted in the fourth quarter, then having Giga Shanghai’s Made-in-China Model Ys pick up the slack may indeed be a good idea.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s next Uranium in Uranus merch is Boring Company’s weirdest tease yet
Elon Musk teased a glowing new Boring Company merch idea, complete with a Geiger counter.
Elon Musk teased the next piece of Boring Company merchandise on X Saturday, and it is exactly as unserious as fans of the company’s product history have come to expect. “The next @boringcompany merch will put Uranium in Uranus,” Musk wrote in a thread posted early Saturday morning. He followed up by explaining that the item would glow in the dark, “because otherwise how could you find it,” and that a Geiger counter would be sold separately as “an optional strap-on.”
Musk closed the thread with a line that doubles as a mission statement for the tunneling company’s merchandise arm: “It’s not easy coming up with something that is both outrageously unsellable and yet extremely popular.”
The Boring Company has built a small but consistent side business out of novelty items that start as jokes and end up selling out. The company’s Not-a-Flamethrower raised roughly $10 million in a few days back in 2018, moving all 20,000 units it produced. Its Burnt Hair perfume, priced around $100 a bottle, sold out fast enough that scalpers were flipping units on eBay for ten times the retail price. Boring Bricks, made from tunneling spoil, followed the same playbook of teasing a product on X months before it became real.
Musk has not said what the actual item will be, only that it involves uranium and glows in the dark. Given the pattern, that vagueness is probably intentional. Past merch announcements have started as one-line jokes and taken weeks or months to turn into an actual product listing on the company’s site, and there is no guarantee this one follows through at all.
The timing lines up with a period of real momentum for the Boring Company outside of the joke merchandise. The company said last week it plans to double the number of operational stations on its Vegas Loop by the end of the year, a target tied to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers. Prufrock-5, one of the company’s tunnel boring machines, also just wrapped a test tunnel in Bastrop, Texas, and is expected to relaunch on its next assignment in November.
Whether the uranium joke turns into an actual product remains to be seen. Musk’s post did not include a price, a shipping date, or even a name for the item, which has historically meant a Boring Company website page goes up quietly, password protected, sometime before an announcement.
News
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
NASA just gave SpaceX a $946 million contract for three more astronaut missions through 2030.
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification covering three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, according to an announcement the agency published Friday. The award adds Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, bringing the agreement’s total value to $5.92 billion across 17 flights.
SpaceX confirmed the award on X, writing that it was excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the Space Station from Florida. The new missions cover ground, launch, in orbit, and return operations, along with cargo transport and a lifeboat capability while docked at the station, and the period of performance runs through 2030.
We’re excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch @NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the @Space_Station from Florida https://t.co/Qm16vVK9F3 pic.twitter.com/drg3s7GtuM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2026
The award follows a notice of intent NASA issued in May, when the agency first signaled it would purchase up to six additional post certification missions from SpaceX. Teslarati covered that filing at the time, noting NASA cited technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing as a driving factor. Friday’s contract modification locks in three of those six missions, with the remaining three left open for NASA to award later, potentially to Boeing if Starliner clears certification.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not flown an operational crew rotation mission for NASA. The spacecraft’s most recent crewed test flight in 2024 ended without the astronauts returning aboard Starliner, and the company has spent the time since working through thruster problems. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said this week that SpaceX is not retiring Crew Dragon today, for sure, while stopping short of committing to fly it past 2030.
Crew-12 is currently docked at the space station, and NASA has said Crew-13 is targeting a launch in the coming weeks. The newly awarded Crew-15 through Crew-17 missions extend SpaceX’s role as NASA’s primary way of getting astronauts to and from orbit well into the back half of the decade, regardless of what happens with Starliner or Starship in the meantime.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Elon Musk’s next Uranium in Uranus merch is Boring Company’s weirdest tease yet
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
