Tesla’s Robotaxi service started taking riders in Fort Worth at 6am Central on Monday, Nov 2. The company announced it the night before with a one-line post and a map from its Robotaxi account on X: “Robotaxi available in Fort Worth starting tomorrow, 6am.”
Fort Worth is Tesla’s seventh Robotaxi city, after Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Tesla’s post doesn’t say whether the cars carry a safety monitor. The Fort Worth Report photographed a Robotaxi downtown with no one in the driver’s seat after its reporter’s ride, and Not a Tesla App reports that Fort Worth rides are unsupervised, as in Tesla’s other Texas markets.
It’s the first new city since Tampa and Orlando opened on July 21, and it wasn’t on the “coming soon” list Tesla posted on Oct 21, which named Las Vegas, Jacksonville, Phoenix and San Antonio. None of those four has launched yet.
Where the Fort Worth geofence runs
Tesla’s map labels the area its “launch geofence.” It centers on downtown Fort Worth and covers much of the north, south and west sides of the city. Reading the map, it reaches Saginaw in the north, with a narrow extension up the I-35W corridor, White Settlement in the west and Benbrook in the south. The eastern edge runs alongside Haltom City and Forest Hill.
The Fort Worth Report noted that east Fort Worth gets thinner coverage: mostly from I-35W to about Riverside Drive south of I-30, with the zone reaching farther east north of I-30. Tesla has not published a square-mileage figure for the zone, and the map-trace estimates circulating online disagree, so this post doesn’t use one.
The Report also said residents had seen Tesla taxis on Fort Worth roads in the weeks before launch, many with drivers during testing.
What the first Fort Worth Report ride showed
A Fort Worth Report reporter booked a launch-day trip from the Near Southside to a restaurant downtown. The app routed the car down West Rosedale Street and up 8th Avenue through the hospital district, across I-30 to West 7th Street, and it arrived in about 15 minutes in heavy midday traffic.
The software side was rougher. The app first showed the ride as canceled, then charged the reporter’s card $8.98 three times for the one trip.
Rides are booked in the Tesla Robotaxi app for iPhone and Android, and existing Tesla account holders can sign in with that login. Tesla’s Oct 29 service update set Robotaxi operating hours at 6am to 2am, a 20-hour window. The Fort Worth post itself only gives the 6am start.
What Tesla hasn’t said about Fort Worth
Tesla hasn’t said how many cars serve Fort Worth, which vehicle it uses there, what its fare structure is, or whether the Fort Worth and Dallas zones will connect. On the launch map, the Fort Worth geofence stops at Haltom City and Forest Hill, well short of Dallas, so a cross-Metroplex trip isn’t possible on what Tesla has published.
Tesla also hasn’t said whether the free first ride Not a Tesla App reports seeing in Houston and Dallas applies here, or when the purpose-built Cybercab, which has run rides in Austin, might reach the Metroplex.
How Fort Worth compares with Waymo’s city list
Waymo still covers more ground. Its FAQ lists 12 cities where anyone can ride through the Waymo app (Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Metro Phoenix, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa), plus Las Vegas, where it is welcoming riders, and Austin and Atlanta through Uber.
Six of Tesla’s seven Robotaxi cities overlap with that list, counting Austin through Uber. Fort Worth is the exception: Waymo lists Dallas but not Fort Worth. As of Waymo’s FAQ on Nov 3, that makes Fort Worth the first city where Tesla runs driverless rides and Waymo doesn’t list a service.
What Fort Worth means for Tesla’s next cities
For Tesla, Fort Worth is a fourth Texas city and one it never put on a list. Tesla is also working to bring its robotaxi software to owner cars with FSD v15, so each new driverless zone is another public test of that software. The next test is whether the four cities Tesla did promise in October follow as quickly.