Tesla · Robotaxi · 17 Oct 2026

Tesla Robotaxi now runs until midnight in Austin, and all 34 of its newest Texas cars are Model Ys

Tesla's Robotaxi app started telling Austin riders on Friday night that rides are "now available until midnight." That makes the service day 6am to midnight, an hour later than the 11pm close Tesla's official account listed on October 12. The same evening, the Texas DMV's automated-vehicle registry showed Tesla's fleet passing 800 for the first time. Since at least late September every new addition had been a Cybercab. This time all 34 were Model Ys.

From @ALJR86Tesla desk · News & analysis

What changed on Friday night

The first screenshots appeared at Fri 10:18pm CT (Austin time), when riders began posting the same push notification from the Robotaxi app: "Night out? Cybercab has your back. Rides now available until midnight." @XanderSky was among the first. A few minutes later Austin rider @gheeunit posted that rides now run "from 6 am until midnight" and that this "includes both Cybercab and Model Y." Several other riders posted the same alert over the next few hours.

As of Saturday afternoon, Tesla's official @robotaxi account hadn't posted about the change, and neither had Elon Musk. So for now the source is Tesla's own app, not an announcement. That's still a meaningful signal: on October 12 the same account listed its hours as "6am-11pm."

10pm since late August. 11pm on October 2. Midnight on October 16. Two extra hours of service in two weeks.

Back to day-one hours, still short of the peak

Tesla has moved Austin's closing time back and forth over the last 16 months. Here's the history, based on Tesla's posts and reporting at the time:

Hours are local Austin time (CT).

So Austin is back to the exact window it opened with in June 2025, but it's still two hours short of the 2am close it ran for most of the past year, according to Teslarati. The big difference from 2025 is what's driving. At launch the service ran Model Ys only. Today Tesla's Texas registry also lists 349 Cybercabs, its purpose-built two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals.

Musk has been open about why the late hours come back slowly. When the cutoff moved to 11pm on October 2, he wrote that "the main thing we're trying to solve is making sure that we don't run over pets when they're hard to see at night." Two weeks later Tesla is adding another hour, which in my read suggests it's seeing progress on that problem. There's still no date for 24/7 service in Austin, though Teslarati reports that Tesla has tied round-the-clock operation to an upcoming FSD software release.

The fleet: 803 cars, and a change in what Tesla is adding

The Texas DMV publishes every vehicle registered for driverless commercial service. According to that registry, as tracked by Robotaxi Tracker and FSD Database, Tesla's count went from 769 to 803 late on October 16, Austin time, and all 34 new entries are 2026 Model Ys. That ended a run where the Model Y count sat at 420 and every new car was a Cybercab. When I covered the last batch, all 30 additions were Cybercabs. This time the Cybercab count stayed flat at 349.

Counts from the Texas DMV registry via Robotaxi Tracker (robotaxitracker.com) and FSD Database, both checked 17 Oct 2026. Percentages are my own arithmetic.

One batch of Model Y registrations doesn't mean the Cybercab ramp has stalled. Registrations come in batches. But it's a reminder that the quickest way for Tesla to add robotaxi supply right now is the car it already builds in large numbers, while Cybercab output is still ramping.

My math: about 11% more potential service in one day

Put the two changes together and the effect is bigger than either one alone. If every registered Tesla in Texas could run for the full Austin window (a ceiling, not a real-world figure):

• Before: 769 cars × 17 hours = 13,073 vehicle-hours a day
• Now: 803 cars × 18 hours = 14,454 vehicle-hours a day
• Change: 1,381 more, or roughly +10.6%

The real number is lower. The registry covers all of Texas, not just Austin. Cars need charging and cleaning, and a registered car isn't necessarily in service. Robotaxi Tracker says it has matched 444 of Tesla's 803 registered VINs to vehicles in its community-reported fleet directory. Still, the direction is clear: more cars and a longer day both push toward more rides per night out.

How Tesla compares in Texas

Waymo still has the larger Texas registry, with 1,185 vehicles listed against Tesla's 803, according to Robotaxi Tracker's count of the DMV data. But Tesla is growing faster: it added 364 registrations in the last 30 days, compared with 197 for Waymo, by the same count. The gap that matters most for riders is hours. Waymo's Austin cars are available on Uber 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and an 18-hour day is the main thing Tesla hasn't matched yet.

What to watch next

• An official confirmation. The @robotaxi account announced the last change on X. Watch for a post confirming midnight, and whether Tesla's other Robotaxi cities get the same hours.
• Past midnight. Every extension since August has been one hour. The 2am close Austin had before is the next obvious step, and 24/7 is the end goal.
• The next registry batch. If the next additions are Cybercabs again, Friday's batch was a one-off. If they're Model Ys again, Tesla may be leaning on the Model Y to keep up with demand while Cybercab output ramps.

Sources: Robotaxi app notification as posted by riders, including @XanderSky (Fri 10:18pm CT), @gheeunit (Fri 10:25pm CT) and @TeslasRUs (Fri 11:34pm CT); @robotaxi on X (12 Oct 2026); Texas DMV automated-vehicle registry via Robotaxi Tracker (https://robotaxitracker.com), checked 17 Oct 2026, and @RtaxiTracker (17 Oct 2026); FSD Database Texas Robotaxi list, checked 17 Oct 2026; TeslaNorth (3 Oct 2026), including Elon Musk's post quoted above; Teslarati (5 Oct 2026) for the 2025 hours history; Uber, Waymo on Uber for Waymo's hours. Times are shown in your own time zone. Percentages and vehicle-hour figures are my own arithmetic from those numbers.

— @AlJR86