Tesla opens Fort Worth Robotaxi service, creating a second Dallas-Fort Worth market

Tesla opened its Robotaxi ride-hailing service in Fort Worth at 6 a.m. Central Time on Nov. 2, establishing its fourth Texas market after Austin, Dallas and Houston. The launch gave the company two separate operating areas in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

The Fort Worth service area covers 143 square miles, according to Basenor, making it Tesla’s third-largest Robotaxi geofence after Austin’s 272 square miles and Houston’s 254 square miles. Dallas covers 81 square miles; Tesla’s Florida markets are smaller, at 31 square miles in Miami, 26 in Orlando and 24 in Tampa.

The map is centred on downtown Fort Worth and reaches north towards Saginaw, west beyond White Settlement, southwest towards Benbrook and east near Haltom City and Forest Hill. Riders can request trips through the Tesla Robotaxi app when their location is inside the zone.

Tesla did not disclose the number of vehicles assigned to Fort Worth, whether vehicles would carry a safety monitor, or whether the Fort Worth and Dallas geofences will ultimately be linked. It also did not say whether the free first-ride offer shown to new users in Dallas and Houston would extend to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth is Tesla’s seventh US city for an unsupervised Robotaxi service, following Austin, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remained a separate supervised programme, with a safety driver in every vehicle under California law.

The Fort Worth opening came after a roughly three-month interval without a new unsupervised city addition. The reason for that pause was not confirmed. Fort Worth’s proximity to Dallas could allow contiguous coverage in the future, but Tesla has made no such commitment.

Texas now has four of the company’s seven unsupervised US cities and three of its four largest service areas. State law requires companies running automated vehicles commercially to obtain authorisation from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles under Senate Bill 2807, which took effect after rules were adopted and a 90-day implementation period elapsed.

A late-October Texas vehicle tally counted 1,204 Tesla Robotaxis, including 631 Model Ys and 573 Cybercabs. That was just below Waymo’s 1,259 registered vehicles in the same tally, and far above the 42 Tesla Robotaxis registered in the state on June 2. Registration totals do not show how many vehicles are active in each city, including Fort Worth.

Tesla has recently stated that Robotaxi service hours run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. The company has also added Calm Mode, trip sharing, an in-ride rear-view camera feed and accessibility functions such as haptic feedback to help riders locate a vehicle. Ashok Elluswamy said on Tesla’s October third-quarter call that the company could reach around-the-clock Robotaxi operations by year-end.