Tesla extends Austin Robotaxi and Cybercab rides to midnight
The extra hour aligns Cybercab bookings with the wider Robotaxi service, though overnight driving remains a hurdle for 24-hour operations.
Tesla has extended the operating hours of its Austin Robotaxi service by one hour, allowing rides from 6 a.m. until midnight. Cybercab bookings in the city have been extended to the same closing time.
The Tesla Robotaxi app notified riders: “Night out? Cybercab has your back. Rides now available until midnight.” The change gives customers an additional hour of late-night travel and leaves a six-hour overnight gap before a continuous, 24-hour schedule.
The new timetable follows a series of shorter extensions. Tesla formalized Austin hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Aug. 26, then moved the closing time to 11 p.m. on Oct. 3. Cybercabs had initially been available from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Midnight restores the closing time used when paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025. Tesla subsequently operated until 2 a.m. in September 2025, a 20-hour daily window, meaning the present schedule remains shorter than that earlier peak.
As we reported Oct. 10, Tesla’s Austin Cybercab fleet had passed 300 vehicles. Cybercabs are purpose-built two-seat ride-hailing vehicles without steering wheels or pedals, while the rest of Tesla’s autonomous Robotaxi fleet consists of modified Model Ys.
Tesla has said its ultimate aim is uninterrupted Robotaxi availability. Ashok Elluswamy, the company’s vice president of AI, said FSD v15 would enable round-the-clock Robotaxi operations, and Tesla had targeted a fleet-wide Robotaxi rollout of the software during October.
The company describes FSD v15 as a tenfold increase in neural-network parameters, from roughly 1 billion to about 10 billion. Tesla has been adding operating hours incrementally while it works on nighttime detection, particularly the ability to identify small animals in low visibility. Elon Musk said the central problem was preventing Robotaxis from hitting pets that are difficult to see at night, describing the challenge as avoiding “grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”