Tesla's Austin Robotaxi Now Closes at 11 PM, an Hour Earlier Than at Launch, as Rivian Prices Lidar at a Few Hundred Dollars

Tesla's Austin Robotaxi service now takes rides until 11 PM, up from 10 PM, after Elon Musk said the limit on night hours is that the cars struggle to see pets in the dark, according to Electrek. Musk's phrase was that Tesla is trying to avoid "grey kittens on grey tarmac".

The number that matters here is not 11 PM but 6 AM to midnight. That was the window when the service launched in Austin in June 2025, Electrek reports, which means the fleet closes an hour earlier fifteen months on.

What Musk said, and what it implies

A grey cat on grey asphalt under low light is a contrast problem. A camera needs the animal to differ from the road in brightness or colour. Lidar measures distance by timing reflected laser pulses, so it does not depend on contrast, and Waymo's own sensor page says its lidar works "no matter the time of day".

Tesla has never fitted lidar. Electrek recounts that it removed radar in May 2021 and dropped ultrasonic sensors in 2022, and that Musk called lidar a "fool's errand" in April 2019 and "a seductive local maximum" in February 2022.

Rivian's lidar number

The cost argument against lidar was once decisive. Rivian Vice President Chip Newcom put the current price in an Electrek report on September 30: "on the order of a few hundred dollars versus if you went back several years ago where it was thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars within the vehicle."

Rivian is adding lidar to the R2 SUV, but on a slow schedule. Employees get R2s with it by the end of 2026 and customers in 2027, with no date given, Electrek reports. Rivian's own Autonomy and AI Day page describes a Gen 3 computer built around its RAP1 chip, rated at 1,600 sparse INT8 TOPS, a figure the company supplied and no independent party has tested.

Company	Sensors named in sources	Night status
Tesla	Cameras only; radar removed 2021	Austin service ends 11 PM
Waymo	29 cameras on Jaguar I-PACE, plus lidar and radar	Lidar works at any hour, per Waymo
Rivian	Cameras and radar; lidar on R2 from 2027	Not yet on customer cars

The sources disagree on Waymo's count. Electrek gives 13 cameras, 4 lidars and 6 radars; Waymo's page says 29 cameras on its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles without a lidar number. The two may describe different vehicle generations, so neither is safe to treat as the whole fleet.

What the hours do and do not prove

An hour of service at night is a cost-benefit call, not a proof of a sensor limit. A fleet operator weighs demand, ride prices and crash liability against the hours. Musk's explanation is the only reason on record in the sources we read, and Tesla has published no incident rate by hour.

Electrek also reports that Tesla has scaled the Robotaxi service very little since June 2025, even after adding Cybercabs the previous month. No fleet size appears in the pieces we read, which makes any per-vehicle estimate guesswork.

For another electric fleet, see FedEx's 2,000-truck Harbinger order, and for physical A.I. in general, Runway's Praxis-1 robot model.

What would change this read

Tesla publishing night-time disengagement or incident data would do it, as would a service window that extends past midnight without new sensors. Either would show the kitten problem is a software gap and not a hardware ceiling. Until then the limit is a founder's explanation of a fleet whose hours have shrunk.