One More Hour: Austin Robotaxi Runs Until 11 p.m.

AUSTIN, Texas - Tesla gave Austin riders one more hour of driverless service on Friday night. The official Robotaxi account posted that rides in the city are now available until 11 p.m., a one-hour extension from the 10 p.m. cutoff the service has used since late August. The paid Cybercab fleet that rolls inside that same Austin geofence inherits the new window with every other unsupervised car on the map.

About half an hour later, Elon Musk quote-posted the update and explained why the night clock moves slowly. "Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm," he wrote. "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."

The prior public window was 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, confirmed by the Robotaxi account on Aug. 26 after riders began seeing the shorter day in the app. Friday's move restores one hour of evening coverage without claiming the round-the-clock service riders have asked for since Cybercab's commercial debut on Sept. 3. Robotaxi Radar framed the change as another step on the road to 24/7 operation.

Austin remains the only U.S. city where the public can open Tesla's Robotaxi app and pay for a purpose-built Cybercab. The same app also dispatches Model Y robotaxis in Austin and in other unsupervised markets. Friday's notice was written as an Austin hours change for the Robotaxi product, not a Cybercab-only schedule. Because Cybercab already runs paid rides inside that city map, the later cutoff is the practical evening window for both vehicle types there.

Tesla has been pressing the Austin fleet hard through the first month of Cybercab service. Texas registrations recently climbed to 169 Cybercabs beside 420 Model Ys on the state Robotaxi list. Trackers have also logged shorter waits during heavy event nights as more cars joined the map. The hours extension does not invent a new city. It lengthens the day in the one market where a rider can already book the coupe.

Musk did not set a date for a move past 11 p.m. His post puts the next gate in plain terms: better detection of small, low-contrast animals at night before the company widens the clock again. Until that work clears, Austin's unsupervised Robotaxi day, Cybercab included, ends at 11 p.m. local time.

Watch for the app clock to move again, and for any later notice that spreads the same evening window to other unsupervised cities. For now the verified record is simple. Official account. One hour later. Safety framed as the reason the night still has a hard stop.