Tesla has expanded on Tuesday the geofenced area of its Robotaxi in Austin for the first time in two months.
According to Tesla shareholder and X user Sawyer Merritt, the service area has expanded by 44% and it now covers 243 square miles of the Texas capital.
The new geofenced area represents nearly 80% of Austin’s 305 square miles.
In late August, the company outpaced its main competitor in Austin by expanding its Robotaxi geofenced area to 177 square miles.
Merritt also noted that Tesla‘s Robotaxi service area is now “3.7X larger than Waymo’s” despite noting that the Google subsidiary operates a much bigger fleet.
Google-backed Waymo launched its service in Austin earlier this year through the Uber app, expanding its coverage from 37 to 90 square miles in July.
Tesla, which launched its ride-hailing service in late June, has already expanded its geofenced area four times.
They also introduced dynamic pricing based on distance, replacing the initial fixed fare structure.
Commenting on the latest expansion, CEO Elon Musk wrote on X that “Tesla autonomous driving might spread faster than any technology ever.”
“The hardware foundations have been laid for such a long time that a software update enables self-driving for millions of pre-existing cars in a short period of time,” he added.
The chief executive is referring to the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system too, for which the latest version was released earlier this month.
The FSD 14.1 series has been updated four times since its launch just three weeks ago, as Tesla‘s path towards autonomy accelerates.
On the company’s latest earnings call, Musk announced that the company now plans to remove the safety drivers from its Robotaxi vehicles “within a few months.”
The fleet currently consists of Model Ys equipped with the Robotaxi FSD, with operators seated in either the driver’s or passenger’s seat, as Tesla is taking a conservative stance toward deployment that prioritizes safety.
“Obviously we’re being very cautious about the deployment, because even one accident will be front-page headline news worldwide,” Musk said, adding that “it’s better for us to take a cautious approach here.”
Earlier this week, Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana questioned whether some autonomous vehicle developers are doing what is necessary to “earn the right to make the roads safer.”
Without criticizing Tesla directly, Mawakana hinted that the Elon Musk-led company is not transparent with the robotaxi fleet.
Tesla expects to operate its robotaxi service in eight to ten metropolitan areas by the end of 2025.
The company recently listed a job posting for Vehicle Operators in Colorado, marking the seventh state where it is expected to launch the service — after Texas, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada and Arizona.
