Tesla Robotaxi Opened in Fort Worth on Nov. 2: A 143-Square-Mile Zone, Its Seventh City, and One Reporter's $8.98 Ride Billed Three Times. Tesla Hasn't Said How Many Cars Are There.

The claim: Tesla's Robotaxi service is now open in Fort Worth, Texas.

The proof: Tesla's own Robotaxi account announced it, a local newsroom took a paid ride on day one, and the service map is public. What's missing is just as clear: Tesla hasn't said how many cars serve Fort Worth, what the fares are, or how the first week is going.

Here's what we know, where each fact comes from, and what's still a guess.

Editorial Thesis

Tesla Robotaxi's Fort Worth launch is the rare Robotaxi claim with day-one proof: Tesla's own post, a public map, and a local reporter who paid for a ride. The open questions are the ones Tesla always leaves open: how many cars, how much a ride costs, and whether anyone is in the front seat.

Honest Verdict

• Confirmed (Tesla's @robotaxi post + Fort Worth Report): rides started 6 a.m. Nov. 2; Fort Worth is the seventh city; a reporter rode Near Southside to downtown in about 15 minutes and was charged $8.98 three times.
• Reported (Not a Tesla App, TeslaNorth): about 143 square miles; no safety monitor; Model Y only at launch.
• Not known: fleet size, fare table, whether the extra charges were refunded, and when Cybercabs ride outside Austin.

What happened

On Sunday night, Nov. 1, Tesla's official Robotaxi account on X posted one line and a map: "Robotaxi available in Fort Worth starting tomorrow, 6am." (On X the post is stamped Nov. 2, because X uses UTC time.)

At 6 a.m. Central on Monday, Nov. 2, the Robotaxi app started taking riders in Fort Worth.

That makes Fort Worth:

• Tesla's seventh Robotaxi city, after Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
• Its fourth in Texas.
• Its first new city in about three months. The last launches were Orlando and Tampa in late July, according to Not a Tesla App.

Fort Worth also wasn't on any of the next-city lists Tesla has shared. Those lists named San Antonio, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Jacksonville. So this one came with no warning.

How big is the zone

Tesla's post shows a map, not a number. Not a Tesla App measured the zone at about 143 square miles.

From the map, the zone:

• is centred on downtown Fort Worth,
• reaches north to Saginaw and up I-35W past Loop 820,
• runs west past White Settlement and southwest to Benbrook,
• stops on the east side near Haltom City and Forest Hill.

The Fort Worth Report adds that east Fort Worth is the thin part. Coverage there mostly runs from I-35W to about Riverside Drive south of I-30, and reaches farther east only north of I-30.

If the 143 figure holds, Fort Worth is Tesla's third-largest zone without a safety driver, behind Austin (272 square miles) and Houston (254). Counting the 1,098-square-mile Bay Area zone, where a safety driver still sits behind the wheel, it's fourth.

One caveat: 143 square miles is an outside measurement of a map image. Tesla hasn't published it.

The first ride: on time, then billed three times

The best first-day proof comes from the Fort Worth Report, the city's nonprofit newsroom. Senior business reporter Eric E. Garcia booked a ride from the Near Southside District to a downtown restaurant.

The app sent the car down West Rosedale Street, up 8th Avenue through the busy hospital district, across I-30 to West 7th Street, and to the door in about 15 minutes, in what the paper called "substantial midday traffic."

Then the billing. In the paper's words: "The app initially canceled the ride before charging $8.98 to the reporter's credit card three times for the one trip."

So the car did the hard part well. The app did the easy part badly, at least once. We don't know whether the extra charges were refunded, or whether other riders saw the same bug. One ride is one data point, not a pattern. But a day-one billing glitch is exactly the kind of thing a new city shakes out, and it's worth watching.

The paper's photo caption describes "a driverless Tesla Robotaxi" sitting downtown after the drop-off.

Is there anyone in the car

This is the part to read carefully.

• Not a Tesla App says Fort Worth rides are "fully unsupervised, with no human safety monitor in the vehicle," like Tesla's other Texas cities.
• TeslaNorth points out that Tesla's own post didn't say whether a safety monitor rides along.
• The Fort Worth Report calls the car "driverless" in its caption but doesn't spell out who, if anyone, sat up front.

So "no one in the car" is a strong report from people who track this closely, plus a local caption. It isn't a Tesla statement. Tesla didn't put it in writing.

What car shows up

Model Y. Not a Tesla App says Fort Worth starts with Model Y Robotaxis.

That matters because of the Cybercab. Tesla's two-seat car with no steering wheel or pedals has been giving paid rides in Austin since Sept. 3, according to Tesla's Q3 report. It still isn't in any other city.

The Texas DMV list of cars registered to Tesla's Robotaxi company backs up how big the gap between "registered" and "riding" is. Our tracker read it on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at about 6:12 a.m. Eastern: 1,244 vehicles, made up of 573 Cybercabs and 671 Model Ys. That count hasn't moved since Nov. 2.

Those are registrations, not cars giving rides. Tesla hasn't said how many of the 1,244 work in Fort Worth, or in any single city. TeslaNorth cited a slightly older tally of 1,204, and the list moves during the day, which is why counts differ by source.

What Tesla didn't say

Tesla's Fort Worth post left out almost everything a rider or investor would want:

• Fleet size. No number of cars for Fort Worth.
• Prices. No fare table. The only public price is the reporter's $8.98 trip.
• Hours. Tesla's other cities now run from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., per TeslaNorth. Fort Worth's hours weren't stated separately.
• Dallas. No word on whether the Fort Worth and Dallas zones will join up into one Dallas-Fort Worth area.
• Promotions. A free first ride has shown up for new riders in Dallas and Houston. Nobody has confirmed it in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth residents had seen Tesla test cars, many with drivers, on local roads in the weeks before launch, the Fort Worth Report said. So this wasn't a cold start. But "the app works" and "the service is big" are two different claims. Only the first one has proof so far.

How to ride

The Fort Worth Report's instructions are simple:

1. Download the Robotaxi app on iPhone or Android.
2. Sign in with a Tesla account, or create one.
3. Book a ride inside the zone on the map.

If you get charged more than once, screenshot it. Then check whether the extra charges drop off. That's how we'll find out whether the reporter's bill was a one-off.

Why this matters

For a year the Robotaxi story has been about announced cities. Fort Worth is a working city: real riders, a real map, a real (if buggy) bill. That's progress you can check.

It's also a reminder of what still can't be checked from outside:

• how many cars are actually on the road in each city,
• how often riders wait, get canceled or get billed wrong,
• when the Cybercab, not the Model Y, does the driving outside Austin.

Tesla publishes the map. It doesn't publish the fleet.

The video

CBS Texas's short report (0:24), "Tesla expands robotaxi service to Fort Worth and surrounding cities," is local TV confirming the launch. For a longer look, Fort Worth resident Spencer's "I Took a Tesla Robotaxi in Fort Worth on Launch Day" (Nov. 2, 10:57) shows booking, pickup and a rerouting problem at a closed gate. That's one rider's account, not a Tesla statement.

What to watch next

• Whether Tesla posts a Fort Worth fleet number, or Fort Worth rides show up in the next safety report.
• Whether the Fort Worth and Dallas zones connect.
• Whether Cybercabs start giving rides anywhere outside Austin.
• Texas DMV roster changes in our daily tracker (now 1,244: 573 Cybercab + 671 Model Y).
• San Antonio, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Jacksonville, the cities Tesla did name.

Bottom line

Tesla Robotaxi opened in Fort Worth on Nov. 2: its seventh city, a zone of about 143 square miles, and a first ride that got there in 15 minutes and then billed $8.98 three times. The launch is real. The scale isn't public.