HOUSTON - Tesla has extended its Robotaxi ride-hailing service across much of central Houston, adding neighborhoods inside the 610 Loop such as Montrose, Midtown and East Downtown, Axios Houston reported. The company's Robotaxi account announced the change on Monday, writing on X "Houston, we have liftoff" and saying a bigger service area was now live.
Until now, Tesla's cars had operated in northwest Houston, near Jersey Village, according to Axios. Riders can now hail them throughout much of the 610 Loop as well as in the northwest of the city, though the northeast portion of the Loop remains outside the boundary.
The outline of the new map resembles a rocket, which gave the announcement its wording. "I swear it's just a coincidence," Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, wrote on X about the shape, Axios reported.
Houston has so far been a small market for the company. In the week ending Oct. 18, Tesla's cars drove 7,288 miles in Houston with no safety monitor aboard, compared with 438,000 in Austin and 94,841 in Dallas, according to figures from Tesla's weekly Robotaxi safety reporting that were compiled by the community project Robotaxi Tracker and published by Electrek.
The Austin figure prompted Mr. Musk to declare on X that Tesla's race with Waymo "was never a real contest," because it edged past Waymo's second-quarter average of about 406,000 driverless miles a week in that city, Electrek reported. Across all of its markets, Waymo averaged about 3.9 million rider-only miles a week in the second quarter, the outlet noted.
Tesla's first Robotaxi Safety Report, published Oct. 21, said its cars had driven about 3.1 million miles without a monitor aboard since Jan. 22, Driverless.news reported.
The larger map adds to a growing robotaxi presence in the city. Waymo already operates in Houston, and Uber and Amazon's Zoox are testing vehicles there, according to Axios.