Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin now runs until 11 PM, pushing its daily cutoff one hour later than the 10 PM end time it has used since August, and Elon Musk says the biggest hurdle for late-night rides is making sure the cars don’t hit pets that are hard to see in the dark.
Tesla’s Robotaxi account shared the update on X at 8:52 PM PT on October 2, 2026, saying riders in Austin can now hail a driverless Tesla until 11 PM. Back on August 26, the account said the service would run from 6 AM to 10 PM, seven days a week, so the new window is 6 AM to 11 PM.
Musk quote-posted the announcement about 35 minutes later, at 9:27 PM PT, and explained why night hours are moving slowly. “Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm. 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. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark,” Musk wrote.
An extra hour might look small on paper, but it matters for an unsupervised service where late evenings are a big chunk of demand, from people heading home after dinner to folks leaving events downtown. Musk’s comment also gives a rare look at the kind of edge cases Tesla is still working through before it can stretch hours further into the night.
The change caps off a busy stretch for the Austin program. The 67th Cybercab joined the Austin fleet on September 22, and since September 10, anyone in Austin can hail a Cybercab right from the Robotaxi app. That app also climbed to No. 1 among free travel apps on the App Store in early September, and Tesla more recently made the Robotaxi trunk open automatically after rides so passengers don’t leave bags behind.
Musk didn’t say when hours might move past 11 PM, but his comments suggest the next extension will depend on how well each Tesla in the fleet handles small, low-contrast obstacles at night. With the Cybercab fleet still growing, later service hours and eventually round-the-clock rides in Austin are the next things to watch.
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