Tesla · Robotaxi · 9 Nov 2026

Tesla Robotaxi reaches San Antonio with its biggest launch zone yet, and Texas registrations are now 3 cars apart

Tesla’s official Robotaxi account says rides open in San Antonio at 5am Central, a week after Fort Worth. It’s Tesla’s eighth city on the unsupervised map and fifth in Texas. A fresh Texas DMV pull puts Tesla three cars behind Waymo (as of 9 Nov 2026).

From Alex RTesla · Robotaxi · News & analysis

The editor holds Tesla and SpaceX shares. Supercharged Daily is independent and not affiliated with either company. Nothing here is financial advice.

What Tesla announced

Tesla used the same one-line format it used for Fort Worth. The @robotaxi post went up at 12:27am Central on Monday, 9 Nov, and said rides would start “tomorrow, 5am.” Sawyer Merritt, who tracks the rollout, reads that as 5am CT on 9 Nov (6am ET / 3am PT), matching how last week’s overnight Fort Worth notice was treated. A strict reading of “tomorrow” after midnight would put the start at 5am CT on Tuesday, 10 Nov. Until first rides appear, treat the start as announced for 5am CT with that wording flagged. Elon Musk reposted the announcement. Tesla hasn’t confirmed whether San Antonio rides are unsupervised.

This was written before the start time, so treat it as an announced launch for now. There were no first-ride posts from San Antonio when checked, and Tesla hasn’t said how many cars will serve the city. Our San Antonio city page is updated with this announcement.

The zone is Tesla’s largest at launch

Tesla doesn’t publish service-area sizes. Merritt measured the San Antonio geofence at about 275 square miles, slightly bigger than Austin’s 272. So San Antonio opens with more ground than Austin covers today. These are Merritt’s estimates (as of 9 Nov 2026):

Source: Sawyer Merritt’s measurements, posted 9 Nov 2026. Totals and shares are site arithmetic on those figures.

Add those up and Tesla’s unsupervised map passes 1,100 square miles, up from 831 a week ago. The five Texas cities account for about 1,025 of them, roughly 93%. The three Florida cities still total 81 square miles between them. Merritt also estimates the zones now cover about 4.2 million people, or 1.2% of the U.S. population, up from 1.0% last week. That’s his calculation, not Tesla’s.

Waymo got to San Antonio first

Waymo has been in the city since February. It opened San Antonio to invited riders on 24 Feb 2026 with a zone of more than 60 square miles, from North Star Mall down to the fairgrounds, KSAT reported at the time. Waymo paused service there earlier this year over how its cars handled floodwater and resumed in September, according to KSAT. On 14 Oct 2026 Waymo opened the app to everyone in San Antonio and added San Antonio International Airport.

A current square-mileage figure from Waymo for San Antonio wasn’t found, so the two zones can’t be lined up directly. Going by Merritt’s map, Tesla’s opening zone is several times the size of Waymo’s at its own February launch. Tesla’s announcement didn’t mention the airport.

Texas registrations: 1,282 vs 1,285 (as of 9 Nov 2026)

Texas requires every driverless-car operator to register each vehicle with the state DMV. The day Fort Worth opened, this site counted 1,244 Tesla vehicles against Waymo’s 1,259 (as of 2 Nov 2026). Both full rosters were pulled again at 3:25am ET Monday, 9 Nov (12:25am PT) and compared VIN by VIN.

Source: Texas DMV automated motor vehicle lookup for Tesla Robotaxi LLC and Waymo LLC, pulled 9 Nov 2026 at 3:25am ET. The registry now lists VINs only; models sorted by VIN prefix matched against the 2 Nov labelled roster. No vehicle came off either list. Registered doesn’t mean on the road, and the registry doesn’t say which city a car serves.

The gap has shrunk from 15 cars to 3, and Tesla is at 99.8% of Waymo’s Texas count. Last week Waymo had stopped adding cars. This week it registered 26, more than half of them Zeekr RTs, which kept it narrowly ahead. All 38 new Tesla entries are 2026 Model Ys. The Cybercab count has now sat at 573 for two weeks.

That 1,282 figure is now on the Cybercab / Robotaxi tracker as well: 709 Model Y and 573 Cybercab, checked against FSD Database’s TxDMV VIN list on 9 Nov 2026. The 2 Nov Fort Worth piece used the older 1,244 stamp (671 Model Y). Registered is not in service, and the registry has no city split. See also when Cybercab first outnumbered Model Y and the 6am–2am hours expansion.

The same caveats apply as last week. This is Texas only. Waymo runs about 3,000 vehicles nationwide, according to its February blog post, and Tesla’s Florida cars aren’t in this registry. Nothing public ties any of the new Model Ys to San Antonio, even if the timing fits.

What Tesla still hasn’t said

Tesla hasn’t given a vehicle count for San Antonio, wait times, or prices there. It also hasn’t said publicly whether anyone watches its driverless cars full time, which Forbes columnist Brad Templeton questioned on 28 Oct. Its Q3 update said the fleet had logged nearly 2 million cumulative unsupervised miles.

What’s confirmed and what isn’t

• Announced by Tesla (@robotaxi): San Antonio rides start at 5am CT. Merritt reads that as Monday, 9 Nov (6am ET / 3am PT); Tesla’s “tomorrow” wording after a 12:27am CT Monday post also allows Tuesday, 10 Nov. Not confirmed by first-ride footage when this was written.
• Confirmed (Texas DMV, pulled 9 Nov 2026): 1,282 Tesla vehicles registered (709 Model Y, 573 Cybercab) against Waymo’s 1,285.
• Estimate (Sawyer Merritt, 9 Nov 2026): ~275-square-mile San Antonio zone, about 1,106 square miles across eight cities, about 1.2% of the U.S. population covered.
• Confirmed (Waymo): open to all riders in San Antonio since 14 Oct 2026, airport included.
• Not disclosed by Tesla: car count, pricing, supervision setup, or airport access in San Antonio.

— Alex R