HOUSTON, Texas — Riders in Houston can now hail a driverless Tesla across a much larger slice of the city. The company widened its Robotaxi coverage on Monday, pushing well past its original northwest footprint and into a big share of the area inside the 610 Loop.
Since launch, the cars had stayed close to Jersey Village. The starting map spanned about 25 square miles taking in Jersey Village, Harvest Bend and Willowbrook, hugging U.S. 290 and State Highway 249, and trackers saw little growth through late September.
The new boundary now reaches southeast toward Bellaire and the urban core, and its outline happens to look like a rocket. Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, called the shape a coincidence. A northeastern chunk of the loop is still left out.
Tesla brought unsupervised rides to Houston and Dallas together on April 18, 2026, its first step beyond Austin. Customers book in the Robotaxi app, which gives a fare estimate up front, the way other ride-hailing apps do.
The Austin program came first. Public rides began there in June 2025 with safety monitors aboard, and Tesla later pulled the monitors and grew coverage across most of that metro. Its purpose-built Cybercab, a two-seater with no steering wheel, began carrying Austin riders in early September, and Tesla has said Dallas gets it next in November.
Tesla has company on local streets. Waymo also runs driverless cars in the region, while Amazon-owned Zoox is still in testing and not open to riders. Outside Houston, unsupervised Tesla service also operates in Austin, Dallas, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, and San Antonio is on the company list of future markets.
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