Tesla Robotaxi Area Expands in Austin, Increases Hours Again

Tesla’s original Robotaxi market just got a lot bigger. “Bigger Austin service area now live,” Tesla’s official Robotaxi account announced on X earlier today, shortly after Tesla launched its (now-formerly) largest Robotaxi zone yet in San Antonio.

The expansion adds about 171 square miles, growing Austin’s service area by 63% from 272 to roughly 443 square miles. That’s around three times the size of Waymo’s Austin geofence.

Where the New Austin Geofence Reaches

The new map shows the service area growing in almost every direction except north, where it stays roughly the same and stops short of Round Rock and Cedar Park.

To the east, the geofence now pushes past Pflugerville toward Manor. In the southeast, it extends well past Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and beyond the TX-130 toll road. To the southwest, it now reaches the TX-45 toll road near Buda, and to the west it extends toward Lakeway.

With this expansion, Austin is once again Tesla’s largest unsupervised Robotaxi market by a wide margin. Here’s how all of Tesla’s markets compare now:

• Austin: 443 sq. miles (just expanded)

• San Antonio: 274 sq. miles (just launched)

• Houston: 254 sq. miles

• Fort Worth: 143 sq. miles

• Dallas: 81 sq. miles

• Miami: 31 sq. miles

• Orlando: 26 sq. miles

• Tampa: 24 sq. miles

Keep in mind that advertised sizes don’t always match where you can actually get picked up or dropped off. A recent analysis found that Tesla’s real usable Robotaxi zones in Texas are smaller than advertised, with Austin’s previous usable area coming in about 41% below its advertised size, mostly on the east side of town. It’ll be interesting to see how much of the new territory is actually open for rides.

Not a Tesla App

Rides Now Start at 5 a.m.

Tesla also extended Robotaxi hours again. Former Tesla intern Ethan McKanna (@ethanmckanna) shared a screenshot from the Robotaxi app showing operating hours of 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. The change took effect over the weekend.

@ethanmckanna / X

That’s an hour earlier than before. Tesla pushed service until 2 a.m. a few weeks ago, when it also added Calm Mode to make for more relaxing rides. With the new 5 a.m. start, Robotaxi now runs 21 hours a day.

Full 24/7 service might not be far off. McKanna also spotted what appeared to be unsupervised Cybercabs driving in Austin between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., wondering if Robotaxi vehicles were already operating 24/7 in the city, or at least testing for it. Neither Tesla nor the Robotaxi app has confirmed round-the-clock service yet, and the Cybercabs could have been heading to charging hubs in their downtime.

Austin is home to Tesla’s growing Cybercab fleet, with more than 300 Cybercabs already giving rides in the city. Dallas is set to become the second Cybercab market sometime this month, after Tesla took a three-month break from launching new cities before adding Fort Worth and San Antonio in back-to-back weeks.

With a bigger service area in Austin, a new launch in San Antonio, and hours getting closer to 24/7, Tesla’s Robotaxi service has grown quickly in just a few weeks. Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Jacksonville are still on Tesla’s list of upcoming cities.