AUSTIN - Tesla has extended the operating hours of its Robotaxi ride-hailing service so that rides now run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., three hours later into the night than before, the company said on its Robotaxi account on X late Thursday.
The service had been running from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., a schedule Tesla announced on Oct. 12, after it stretched Austin rides to 11 p.m. at the start of the month. The new post did not say whether the later hours apply in every city where Tesla offers rides, or how many vehicles would be on the road after midnight.
Tesla runs the service in several Texas and Florida cities, including Austin, where its purpose-built Cybercab carries paying riders, and Houston, where it recently enlarged its service area.
Alongside the longer hours, Tesla said riders can now watch the rear-view camera feed during a trip and share their trip details with a friend. It also listed a redesigned Live Activity for phones, a Calm Mode that dims the screen and sets the cabin lighting to a relaxing state, and its Grok assistant on the Model Y vehicles in the fleet. Tesla said earlier this month that Grok was already available in the Cybercab.
The update included three accessibility changes: an improved arrow in the app for locating the vehicle, haptic feedback to help riders find it, and music control through a screen reader. A day earlier, Tesla said it had hosted an Accessibility Day with members of the disabled community and that their feedback goes into all of its Robotaxi products, including the Cybercab.
The changes arrived on the day Tesla's sworn answers to federal safety regulators were due. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit of the Cybercab on Sept. 3 and followed it with a special order containing 21 requests about how Tesla certified a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals as meeting federal safety standards. The agency moved the deadline from Sept. 30 to Oct. 30 after Tesla asked for more time.
Tesla's response did not appear in the agency's public file for the investigation on Friday, according to a review by D.R. Autonomy. NHTSA has not found that the Cybercab violates any standard, and Tesla has not said publicly what its answers contain.