Tesla pushes Austin Robotaxi service to 11 p.m., fleet reaches 169 Cybercabs

Tesla announced on its official Robotaxi account that service in Austin will now run until 11 p.m., an hour later than the previous 10 p.m. cutoff. The change follows an earlier expansion in August that set operating hours from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The company continues to aim for round-the-clock Robotaxi operations as early as this month, contingent on the deployment of full self-driving software version 15 in its driverless vehicles. Elon Musk said the primary obstacle to nighttime service is the system’s ability to detect and avoid animals, noting it must learn to handle “grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”

"We are being extremely careful with autonomous safety," Musk added.

Austin’s Cybercab fleet has expanded rapidly. Texas DMV records show registrations rise from 58 on September 21 to 125 by the end of that week, and Tesla’s app notification confirmed the fleet had doubled and surpassed 100 vehicles. In the two weeks since, 111 additional Cybercabs were added, including 43 between October 1 and 2, bringing the total registered vehicles to 169 – roughly four times the number at launch. No significant incidents have been reported since the service began a month ago.

Austin remains the sole market where Tesla offers commercial rides in steering-wheel-less Cybercabs. Analysts note that the growing fleet could enable expansion to nearby cities such as Houston or Dallas, which already host unsupervised Model Y robotaxi services, or to markets like Miami where a large Cybercab depot has been observed. Observers will watch for further extensions of operating hours, the arrival of FSD v15, and additional fleet deployments before any new city rollout.