Where do robotaxis operate? The US city tracker.
This page answers one question with dates attached: where can you actually ride in a driverless robotaxi in the United States right now? We maintain it because the answer keeps changing (July 2026 alone added at least six metro launches across two operators) and because we're a depot company: every one of these city launches is, to us, a new place the industry will eventually need ground infrastructure. Every claim below is as reported by the dates shown; zones inside each metro are geofenced and grow in steps.
New: this tracker now has a visual twin, the interactive US robotaxi map: every metro below as a tappable map with operators, dates, and zone notes. Free to cite and embed-link in articles; it updates as markets open.
The map at a glance, August 20, 2026
| Metro | Operator(s) | Notes, as reported |
|---|---|---|
| Austin, TX | Tesla + Waymo | The proving ground: Tesla live since June 2025, expanded metro-wide (~245 sq mi) June 3, 2026 |
| Dallas, TX | Tesla + Waymo | Tesla unsupervised, confirmed in its Q2 report, July 22, 2026; Waymo dropped its waitlist and opened to everyone Aug 4, 2026 after ~150,000 riders in the waitlisted phase, with Avis Budget Group running depot operations (TechCrunch) |
| Houston, TX | Tesla + Waymo | Tesla unsupervised: confirmed in its Q2 report, July 22, 2026; Waymo open to everyone with the app Aug 21, 2026, invite gate dropped after 100,000+ riders since the February limited launch (Waymo updates) |
| San Antonio, TX | Waymo | Limited service began February 24, 2026: ~60 sq mi including downtown, the River Walk, and the airport (from March 31); suspended after April flooding, now back on waymo.com's serving list |
| Phoenix, AZ | Waymo | Waymo's oldest market |
| San Francisco / Bay Area, CA | Waymo + Tesla + Zoox | Densest multi-operator overlap in the country; Tesla still uses safety drivers here under a California TCP permit (Q2 report, July 22, 2026) |
| Los Angeles, CA | Waymo | Established |
| Atlanta, GA | Waymo | Established 2025 |
| Las Vegas, NV | Zoox + Waymo (pre-public) | Waymo began employee rider-only trips July 8, 2026, public service still “Up Next” on waymo.com; Zoox's purpose-built pods start charging fares Aug 10, 2026, its first commercial market, after the July 30 NHTSA exemption covering up to 2,500 vehicles (TechCrunch, Aug 5, 2026). Zoox rides in San Francisco and Austin remain free. On Aug 20, 2026 the Nevada Transportation Authority approved commercial permits for Tesla (up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County), Waymo, and Uber, Tesla paid rides expected within ~30 days (TechCrunch) |
| Nashville, TN | Waymo | Open to everyone June 25, 2026, via the Waymo app; Lyft-app dispatch announced, not live |
| San Diego, CA | Waymo | Public riders from Sept 1, 2026, by rolling invitation: ~40 sq mi from Pacific Beach through Point Loma, Mission Valley, Uptown and downtown to Barrio Logan, no airport or freeways yet (employee-only phase announced July 8); Zoox safety-driver mapping from late September. Full guide: Robotaxi in San Diego |
| Denver, CO | Waymo | Public riders from Sept 1, 2026, by rolling invitation (employee-only phase announced July 8); ~50 sq mi inside the City and County of Denver. Full guide: Robotaxi in Denver |
| Miami, FL | Tesla + Waymo | Waymo public riders since January 22, 2026: open to everyone April 2026, ~60 sq mi (Design District, Wynwood, Brickell, Coral Gables), highway routing added, MIA “coming soon,” fleet ops by Moove; Tesla July 3, 2026 (West Miami/Doral zone), our Miami guide. Zoox announced |
| Tampa, FL | Tesla + Waymo | Tesla July 21, 2026 (central Tampa zone, ~4–5 sq mi at launch, per fleet-tracker mapping); Waymo public riders from Sept 1, 2026, by rolling invitation |
| Orlando, FL | Tesla + Waymo | Tesla July 21, 2026, airport-corridor zone (our Orlando guide); Waymo open to everyone since April 2026 after the waitlist phase |
Announced next: Washington D.C. (Waymo and Zoox test there with an operator behind the wheel; the Council bill as introduced allows no on-demand network before January 1, 2028) and Detroit (Waymo, before end of 2026); Miami and Austin (Zoox, named in late-July 2026 reporting); Phoenix and Las Vegas listed as “preparations underway” in Tesla's Q2 report, and Nevada has since approved Tesla's commercial permit, which we broke down in the Las Vegas approval explainer. Scale context: Waymo reports more than 4,000 vehicles across 14 US metros as of September 1, 2026, and ~500,000 paid rides per week; Tesla's fleet is younger and smaller but expanded to seven metros, six unsupervised: in about thirteen months, per its July 22, 2026 Q2 report.
Service-hours note (Aug 26, 2026): Tesla widened robotaxi operating hours to 6 a.m.–10 p.m., seven days a week, across every market, said its unsupervised fleet had grown “a lot bigger,” and shipped smarter vehicle distribution aimed at wait times (Not a Tesla App, Aug 26, 2026). Coverage inside each metro remains geofenced; a metro being “live” on this tracker never means the whole metro is inside the zone.
Two networks, two strategies
Waymo is the incumbent at scale: more metros, more vehicles, years of safety data, and a partnership model (its Nashville service runs through Lyft). Tesla is the vertical bet: its own cars, camera-only autonomy, its own app, and a stated endgame no one else has: a network where individually owned vehicles earn alongside the company fleet. That last difference is why this tracker exists on a depot company's website: Waymo's expansion creates cities with robotaxis; Tesla's roadmap creates cities with robotaxi owners.
What every new city actually needs
A city launch looks like software from the outside: a bigger geofence on an app map. On the ground it's four things: legal authorization, a validated zone, a fleet, and the part riders never see: somewhere the cars charge, get cleaned, get inspected, and wait. Today the manufacturers self-host that operations layer for their own fleets, invisibly. The moment individually owned Cybercabs join the network, that burden transfers to owners, every metro on the table above becomes a market that needs depot infrastructure, and “where do robotaxis operate” becomes “where do robotaxis live.” That's the question we're building for.
Frequently asked questions
Which US cities have robotaxis right now?
Fifteen metros as of September 1, 2026, counting a metro as live when at least one operator offers driverless rides to public riders there. Tesla: seven metros per its July 22 Q2 report, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa unsupervised, plus the Bay Area with safety drivers. Waymo, per waymo.com's serving list: Phoenix, SF, LA, Austin, Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas (waitlist dropped Aug 4, 2026), Houston, San Antonio, Miami and Orlando (open to everyone since April 2026), and since September 1, 2026 Denver, San Diego and Tampa by rolling invitation. Las Vegas is still “Up Next” on waymo.com, employee rides only. Zoox: Las Vegas (paid rides began Aug 10, 2026: the metro's live operator), San Francisco, and Austin (still free).
Is my city next?
Announced: Washington D.C. and Detroit (Waymo); Miami and Austin (Zoox). Beyond that, watch the pattern: permissive state law (Florida, Texas), mild weather, airport corridors, dense point-to-point demand. If your state legislature is still debating AV law, you're not next.
Can I own a robotaxi in one of these cities?
Not yet, today's fleets are all company-owned, and the Cybercab has no public order book. What you can do is position: the realistic playbook, the earnings math, and a refundable stall reservation. And you don't need to live in a launch city, own from anywhere.
See the live owner dashboard, the real product running on sample fleet data. No login, no card.
Choosing an operator in one of these metros? Run the ten checks to run on any depot company before you pay anyone a deposit.
About DockDuty. We build the layer this whole map eventually needs: depots where individually owned robotaxis park, charge, get cleaned, and go back out. Depot #1 is targeted to open Q4 2026 in Orlando, one of the newest markets on this page.
Run the ownership math or reserve a stall, the founding 50 is fully reserved; Orlando Depot #2 and every metro’s depot book are open at Priority Owner rates with the same $450 refundable deposit. This page updates as markets open; check the date at the top.