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There’s been some criticism of Tesla’s limited and not entirely perfect robotaxi service in Austin — not to mention the fact that Elon Musk said they’d have robotaxis covering at least 50% of the US population by the end of 2025 … and we’re now almost halfway through 2026.
However, the company has been inching forward with its service, and as part of that it just expanded service in Austin again. Unsupervised Tesla robotaxis now cover the whole Austin metro area.
One of the issues with Tesla’s service in Austin has been a very limited fleet and long wait times. Expanding the service area seems like it could make that even worse. However, Tesla has been slowly putting more robotaxis into service in Austin and elsewhere. That said, it seems based on Robotaxi Tracker that the number of unsupervised Tesla robotaxis in Austin has actually gone down recently. On May 13, I wrote, “According to the website, there are 39 unsupervised Tesla Robotaxis on the road today. Most of them, 27, are in Austin.” Looking at the site right now, it shows 20 unsupervised Tesla robotaxis in Austin.
Perhaps the vehicles are just now being added or on the verge of being added…. If not, it would seem that expanding the geographic area with only 20 cars would lead to worse service — longer wait times.
“This is Tesla’s fifth expansion of the geofence, with the others occurring in July, early August, late August, and late October 2025. It has remained at that size since October 26, but Tesla has now more than doubled that size,” Teslarati shares. “It is now covering the entire area, including suburbs like Pflugerville and Manor, as well as I-35 highways, Gigafactory Texas, and the Austin-Bergstrom Airport.”
I don’t think the geographic expansion is going to change any opinions. Fans see every update as great news signaling progress, while critics are quick to point out that the whole operation is still tiny, supported by remote drivers, imperfect (if not worse than human-driven tax service), and far, far behind schedule.
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