Waymo has responded to Tesla’s Robotaxi enlargement in Austin with a daring assertion by extending its personal geofence by a substantial margin.
Earlier this week, Tesla selected to develop its geofence for its driverless Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, considerably. The geofence greater than doubled, bringing Tesla’s whole serviceable space inside Austin to roughly 42 sq. miles.
Tesla’s Robotaxi geofence in Austin grows, and its form is tough to disregard
This put Tesla forward of Waymo by way of its service space in Austin, as the corporate’s geofence was simply 37 sq. miles.
We reported on how important this assertion was for Tesla, because it has solely been working its driverless Robotaxi platform in Austin for lower than a month, in comparison with Waymo, which has been there since March.
Tesla Robotaxi has already surpassed Waymo on this key metric
Waymo took it as a problem, it appears, and expanded its geofence, and it did it impressively and massively. Now, Waymo’s geofence spans 90 sq. miles inside Austin, together with new neighborhoods akin to Crestview, Windsor Park, Sundown Valley, Franklin Park, in addition to well-liked vacationer locations like The Area and McKinney Falls State Park.
The transfer “unlocks one other key milestone in Austin as our working territory with Waymo expands from 37 to 90 sq. miles, which implies that much more riders can expertise Waymo’s totally autonomous autos by the Uber app,” Sarfraz Maredia, World Head of Autonomous Mobility & Supply at Uber, mentioned.
Moreover, Shweta Shrivastava, Senior Director of Product Administration at Waymo, mentioned:
“Simply months after serving our first Austin riders with Uber, we’re excited to supply our 24/7 service to extra of town. The service with our companions at Uber is wholesome, and we’re prepared for extra Austinites to expertise the magic of totally autonomous driving. Austin stays one of many quickest rising cities within the nation, and we’re doing our half to develop with it.”
Throughout the U.S., this enlargement brings Waymo’s service space to greater than 700 sq. miles, because it additionally operates in California and Arizona.
Right here’s what the 2 geofenced areas appear like:
🚨 Right here’s a comparability of Tesla Robotaxi vs Waymo geofences in Austin https://t.co/6jIaDwBm2I pic.twitter.com/B9jiCIU21F
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 17, 2025
The competitors between Waymo and Tesla solely advantages shoppers, as the 2 corporations are evidently sparring for a bigger service space in Austin. Tesla launched its interestingly-shaped geofence enlargement on Monday, and it appeared that the form was extra of a joke that is also construed as a warning to opponents.
Tesla may greater than seemingly have pushed its geofence to a bigger measurement, but it surely purposely selected to take action in a comical trend.
Now that Waymo has responded on this approach, we’ll see if Tesla places the jokes apart.
