Tesla Robotaxi Goes 24/7 as Musk Sends Optimus Robots to School

Tesla's Robotaxi fleet just stopped taking nights off. Elon Musk announced on X that the service now runs around the clock in every market where it operates, saying a Robotaxi "works 168 hours a week" — roughly the equivalent of four 40-hour work weeks. The official Robotaxi account backed him up, posting that the service is now 24/7 in "every city we're available in."

That's a fast ramp. The fleet used to pause overnight, and hours have been stretching gradually since late October, so riders can now book a trip at any hour inside the service area. Tesla lists eight Robotaxi cities across Texas and Florida, with San Antonio the newest on the map. It also runs a ride-hailing service with safety drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and most trips use the Model Y.

The two-seat Cybercab is the exception. It only operates in Austin for now, even though Tesla plans to have it replace Cybertruck output at its Texas plant in 2027.

Musk's attention wasn't only on cars. A second post pointed to the "Optimus Academy," the training site for Tesla's humanoid robots, and shared a video from a Tesla-focused creator titled "Why Tesla Is Building A School For Robots." Tesla first described the academy on its third-quarter earnings call, where Musk said the company needs "on the order of 10,000 or 20,000 bots" that practice tasks through self-play.

The two programs learn very differently. Robotaxi feeds on driving data from millions of customer cars; Optimus has no such fleet behind it. So the robots will start by watching people, then grind through tasks by trial and error. Musk compared it to raising a toddler, noting that "initially, they're sort of wobbly and they don't know how to do things."

Wall Street is watching both bets. Tesla stock has climbed back toward $400 after a sharp dip earlier this month, though it's still down for the year. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives sees robotaxis and Optimus as Tesla's next growth drivers, and ARK Invest ties most of Tesla's 2031 value to a single business beyond car sales.