Tesla’s Unsupervised Robotaxi Fleet Grows as Night Rides Begin

Tesla is accelerating the rollout of its autonomous service. Over the past week, the company has added more fully unsupervised Model Y vehicles to its Robotaxi fleet across Texas, broadening both coverage and operating hours.

Night Owls in Austin and Fleet Growth

In Austin, where a mix of supervised and fully autonomous vehicles has been operating for some time, the fleet has begun running unsupervised at night. According to @RtaxiTracker, "Tesla Robotaxi in Austin is operating unsupervised in the evenings for the first time today.” Previously, these unsupervised runs concluded by mid-afternoon, and the move into evening and nighttime suggests greater confidence in handling low-light conditions and nighttime traffic.

At the same time, the fleet itself is growing. Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) highlighted a spike in sightings, noting that Sunday “set a new high for new Unsupervised vehicle sightings, with 7 new Unsupervised Model Ys spotted across Dallas, Houston, and Austin". With the Robotaxi app now available on Android, each new unit is being identified by unique license plates, which helps track the total. As of the latest data from Merritt and @RtaxiTracker, the unsupervised total has surpassed 30 vehicles across three major Texas hubs:

Expanding the Texas Triangle

The current approach appears focused on saturating the "Texas Triangle" before moving on. The company recently expanded Robotaxi service to Houston and Dallas with fully unsupervised rides, a step up from the San Francisco Bay Area, which still utilizes a safety driver behind the wheel.

The roadmap also includes cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, and Las Vegas. Staging for a launch in Phoenix was observed not long ago. However, during the Q1 2026 earnings call last month, CEO Elon Musk clarified that a large, nationwide expansion is not planned yet.

The next major step is tied to the release of FSD v15. This version is expected to deliver a major 10x parameter upgrade, bringing the underlying Full Self-Driving (FSD) model to roughly 10 billion parameters. The company likely wants this improved "brain" in place before scaling the Robotaxi network to dozens of cities simultaneously.

The Future of the Unsupervised Network

Operating zones are evolving quickly. A few months ago, the sight of a vehicle driving through a busy city with nobody inside seemed remote; now it is a nightly occurrence in Texas.

Nighttime unsupervised driving is an important milestone, demonstrating performance across varied lighting and pedestrian activity after dark. As the company ramps up Cybercab production to bolster the Robotaxi fleet and builds out charging infrastructure to support broader service, nationwide—and then global—Robotaxi operations remain the end goal. With the fleet expanding almost daily, residents in Dallas and Houston may soon view these "empty" Model Ys as a routine part of the commute.