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Tesla takes two big steps to secure a future in India

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Tesla is taking a couple of relatively large steps to secure a place in India, where the automaker has been rumored to be working to establish a presence for several months.

With most of the major developments in Tesla’s India operation coming in the last few months, it was reported earlier today that the electric car company is now scouting for retail locations in India in major cities. Showrooms are Tesla’s “dealerships,” where company employees help set up test drives, explain products, and secure orders. It appears that Tesla is working to open these showrooms in three cities in India: New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. All three cities hold significance in Tesla’s success in India.

New Delhi is the Indian capital and the second-most populated city in the country. Delhi could be a major market for Tesla in India. Due to its high population, the city could be a prime area for Tesla to perform employment recruiting and help with sales figures. Around 11 million people reside in the city.

Mumbai is the financial hub of India and holds the label of the country’s most populous city. Mumbai has the highest numbers of millionaires and billionaires in India and is one of the world’s top ten centers of commerce in terms of global financial flow.

Bengaluru is where Tesla is rumored to be setting up a manufacturing unit within India. This is still a relatively speculative report, and no public records have neither confirmed nor denied these claims. However, Tesla will set up a showroom or retail location in the city, which will only increase the company’s footprint within India’s largest cities.

Tesla India: The Three Directors leading Tesla into new lands

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According to Reuters, Tesla has hired global property consultant CBRE Group Inc to survey potential locations to give the company access to affluent customers. This would line up with Tesla’s planned locations in New Delhi and Mumbai, two cities where financially healthy individuals are most frequently found within the country. The locations could be as large as 20,00-30,000 square feet each and will need to have enough room for showrooms and service centers.

In other developments regarding Tesla’s India project, the company has hired a former executive of India’s investment promotional group Invest India, Manuj Khurana, to lead its policy and business development efforts. Khurana will lobby for Tesla and work to develop relationships within the country as Tesla begins to make more strides in entering the Indian market.

For several years, Tesla has been hinting toward an eventual entrance into India. However, the project has been delayed several times for unknown reasons. CEO Elon Musk has teased an India entrance in the past, but this time, the developments seem to indicate that Tesla will be entering the market within the near future, looking to grow the relatively irrelevant EV market share that exists in the country. India only accounted for 5,000 total EV sales, a minimal fraction of the 2.4 million electric cars that made their way to consumers last year. However, the presence of an affordable and highly-supported EV maker like Tesla could change these numbers drastically. A domestic production plant would alleviate Indian car buyers from being exposed to import taxes, which have haunted consumer checkbooks for years, nearly doubling the cost of a car.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road

Elon Musk says Grok Bot can manage your finances through linked bank and investment accounts.

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Concept of SuperGrok Bot handling banking in a Tesla via Grok
Concept of SuperGrok Bot handling banking in a Tesla via Grok

Grok Bot now wants access to your wallet, with SpaceXAI rolling out a new Finance integration for its agent platform that lets users link bank, credit card and investment accounts thereby letting their Bots help manage spending, investments and more. Elon Musk amplified the announcement on X with a short endorsement, “Grok Bot can manage your finances.”

The feature builds on two earlier steps. In early September, Grok gained the ability to answer questions about spending, savings, investments and cash flow using accounts connected through Plaid, starting with users in the U.S. Before that, on August 28, SpaceXAI let Grok Bot buy things online through Link, with users approving every spend request and the Bot receiving a single use card for each payment.

Musk has already shown how far he wants users to push it. In late August, when Tesla investor account Teslaconomics said he was weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, Musk replied, “Try it out. If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole.” That promise goes beyond SpaceXAI’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap the company’s liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. SpaceXAI’s own documentation recommends requiring approval for purchases and financial transfers.

For Tesla owners, the update lands five days after Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles, letting drivers hand off errands by voice while FSD (Supervised) handles the road. Bot access inside the car is currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, though Connectors are open to anyone signed into Grok. With Finance linked, a driver could ask for a spending summary or a check on upcoming bills during the commute.

Grok’s role in the car has grown quickly since Tesla’s Summer Update let it control cabin features by voice. We have been using Grok Bot in our own Tesla for several weeks, and here’s how our latest test went.

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SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for

The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.

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SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.

The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.

The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.

Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.

SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit

Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.

The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

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SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.

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SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout

SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.

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US Golden Dome space defense system (Concept render by Grok)

SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.

Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.

USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.

Starlink’s Starshield wins contract with US Space Force

The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.

Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.

The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.

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