Curb — static clone

San Francisco’s waterfront is closed to robotaxis this weekend.

SFMTA is geofencing autonomous rideshare, including Waymo, off the northern waterfront for Fleet Week, Friday through Sunday 9–11 Oct, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Uber, Lyft, and taxis are not included. No autonomous rideshare in the Presidio.

A Nashville depot sized for hundreds of Waymos opens Sunday.

An 80,000 square foot Waymo and Lyft depot near the airport is set to open 12 Oct. Nashville is already a public driverless market. The building supports hundreds of vehicles. It is not a new-city launch.

Zoox can grow past 100 cars in Las Vegas.

Nevada’s 100-vehicle cap on Amazon’s Zoox was set to lift on 25 Sep. Las Vegas is the only city where Zoox charges a fare. Paid service started 10 Aug, and Harry Reid airport rides began 3 Sep. Hours run 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. across the Strip, Sphere, T-Mobile Arena, and the airport. NHTSA’s exemption allows up to 2,500 purpose-built cabs a year. Zoox has also said Vegas rides should show up in the Uber app later in 2026.

Zoox is mapping Houston and San Diego. It is not charging there.

Zoox sent safety-driver Highlanders to map Houston and San Diego, citing heat, rain, coastal fog, and freeways. That puts the company in about 12 U.S. markets. Paid rides are still Las Vegas only. San Francisco rides stay free while Zoox waits on a California deployment permit it applied for around 11 Sep — described as a couple-month process. Purpose-built cars are also in Austin and Miami, without a public fare. The fleet is about 100 vehicles and roughly 10,000 U.S. rides a week.

Waymo is past half a million paid rides a week.

Late-September reporting put Waymo above 500,000 paid robotaxi rides a week, from three cities in September 2024 to 15 U.S. metros. Denver, San Diego, and Tampa opened to the public on 1 Sep and were still ramping in early October. Denver and San Diego book the Ojai minivan only. Tokyo is still a 2027 target, Munich late 2027, Singapore 2028.

Dallas lot is full of gold cabs. They are not taking fares yet.

Dozens of Cybercabs were staged at Tesla’s Dallas robotaxi hub. Texas registrations were reported near 169 early in the month, up from the mid-120s in late September. Riders still get a Model Y. Tesla has not named a passenger start date. A close watcher guessed “before end of month” — a photo-backed rumor, not a schedule. NHTSA is still looking at how nearly 1,000 Cybercabs were certified.

Optimus volume is now a chip problem, not just a hand problem.

Elon Musk said Tesla cut memory on the AI5 chip so it could get enough silicon for Optimus, then revised the figure back up toward 96GB. Separately, an observer estimated the dedicated Optimus building at Giga Texas was about 40% framed — his estimate, not Tesla’s. August output was already several hundred robots a week at Fremont, aimed at more than 1,000 a week by year end. Almost all of them stay in-house.

Atlas has a factory classroom outside Savannah.

Boston Dynamics moved the Robotics Metaplant Application Center at Hyundai’s Georgia EV plant from a June pilot into full operations. The job right now is parts sequencing and heavy logistics, not welding a car together. Hyundai’s plan is about 25,000 Atlas units across Hyundai and Kia plants, a U.S. plant sized for 30,000 robots a year, and component assembly around 2030. First real Metaplant deployment is aimed at 2028.

Figure walked into 30 homes it had never seen.

Helix 2.5 made beds, folded towels, and tidied living rooms with no data collected in those houses. Figure scored 237 of 420 trials a success — 56%, against 9% for the same model without Index pretraining. That is a real jump, and it is also a 44% failure rate under an all-or-nothing score. Not a product you leave alone with the laundry.

Austin rides now run until 11 p.m. All night is the ask.

Tesla extended Austin robotaxi hours and has talked about 24/7 “as early as this month,” pending a newer FSD build. Musk has tied the night cap to spotting pets in the dark. Cybercab passenger rides are still limited to parts of Austin. The other five unsupervised cities are Model Y fleets.

Las Vegas is Waymo’s 15th metro. Tesla has a permit, not a fare.

Waymo opened the Strip and Boulder Junction to invited riders in mid-September, with open access expected within a month or two. Tesla Robotaxi LLC received a Nevada network certificate on Aug 20 for up to 5,000 vehicles. A commence-by clock sits around Dec 18. Paid Tesla rides had not started as of early October.

Tesla

Tesla runs a robotaxi app. Most cities still send a Model Y. Austin is the only place you can hail a Cybercab.

Working

• Cybercab passenger rides in part of Austin, with a push toward all-night hours.
• A Dallas lot full of cabs that are not taking fares yet.
• More unsupervised Model Y cities, still without a posted Cybercab date.

Soon

• {'name': 'Dallas Cybercab', 'when': 'Late Oct 2026'}
• {'name': 'Houston Cybercab', 'when': 'Q4 2026'}
• {'name': 'Miami Cybercab', 'when': 'Late 2026'}
• {'name': 'Las Vegas', 'when': 'By 18 Dec 2026'}
• {'name': 'Phoenix', 'when': 'Into 2027'}
• {'name': 'SF Bay Area', 'when': '2027+'}

Site: https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi

Waymo

Waymo is the company already taking paid driverless rides in the most cities. It is past half a million paid rides a week.

Working

• Open public service in the cities already launched.
• A Nashville depot near the airport, sized for hundreds of cars.
• Invited riders in Las Vegas, with open access still ahead.

Soon

• {'name': 'Las Vegas', 'when': 'Around Nov 2026'}
• {'name': 'Tokyo', 'when': '2027'}
• {'name': 'Munich', 'when': 'Late 2027'}
• {'name': 'Singapore', 'when': '2028'}

Site: https://waymo.com

Zoox

Zoox builds a purpose-built robotaxi with no steering wheel. Las Vegas is the only city where it charges a fare.

Working

• Paid Strip, Sphere, arena, and airport rides in Las Vegas.
• A California permit so San Francisco can charge.
• Safety-driver mapping in Houston and San Diego.

Soon

• {'name': 'San Francisco', 'when': 'A couple of months'}
• {'name': 'Austin', 'when': 'No fare date'}
• {'name': 'Miami', 'when': 'No fare date'}
• {'name': 'Houston', 'when': 'No fare date'}
• {'name': 'San Diego', 'when': 'No fare date'}

Site: https://zoox.com

Figure

Figure builds a humanoid meant for housework. Helix is the model that tries whole chores in homes it has never seen.

Working

• Making the home result reliable enough to leave the robot alone.
• One model for a tidy room, folded towels, and a made bed.
• More of the Index training set.

Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics builds Atlas, a humanoid for factory work. Hyundai owns the company and is training it in Georgia.

Working

• Parts and logistics at Hyundai’s Georgia EV plant.
• A fleet plan of about 25,000 Atlas units for Hyundai and Kia.
• A U.S. plant sized for 30,000 robots a year.

Optimus

Optimus is Tesla’s humanoid. Tesla builds it for its own factories first. It is not a robot you can buy yet.

Working

• Hundreds a week on the old Model S and X line in Fremont.
• Hands and chip supply are still the holdup.
• Almost all of the robots stay inside Tesla.

Optimus

Tesla is finally building Optimus like a product — hundreds a week on the old Model S and X line in Fremont — and still cannot point to useful unsupervised work or an outside customer.

• Q2 2026 was a few dozen a week. August was several hundred, about a tenfold step, per The Information as reported by Electrek.
• Supply-chain orders around September lined up with roughly 15,000 units for the year. Most stay inside Tesla for data and tests.
• The robots on the line are described as V3 units that are not the durability spec Tesla would hand a customer.
• Hands remain the ugly part: on the order of a hundred components, still largely put together by people.
• Musk has said none were doing useful work after the missed 2025 goal of about 10,000 robots and “several thousand” on real jobs. Later factory use is narrow and supervised.

Figure 03

Helix 2.5 is the sharpest public humanoid result of the fall: a robot that showed up to stranger’s houses and did whole-body chores without a local rehearsal. The score also says it failed nearly half the time.

• Announced 17 Sep 2026. Three behaviors from one model: tidy a living room, fold towels, make a bed.
• 30 Bay Area homes, zero data collected in any of them, no fine-tune on site.
• 420 trials, 237 successes. Index pretraining moved an otherwise identical policy from 9% to 56%.
• The new behavior used about half the task-specific data of a comparable Helix 02 policy, then had to survive 30 layouts instead of one.
• Index, Figure’s human-behavior set, was said to be adding about 35 minutes of experience every second. Figure put $3.5 billion of compute against Helix.

Atlas

The parkour robot has a time clock. Hyundai, which finished buying Boston Dynamics in July, opened a training floor inside its Georgia EV plant and put a number on the fleet: about 25,000 units.

• Robotics Metaplant Application Center sits at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America near Savannah, where Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 are built.
• Pilot operations started in June 2026. The center was publicly opened 21 Sep and described as fully operating by early October.
• Today’s curriculum is logistics and parts sequencing. Heavy lifts come next. Putting components together is the 2030 job, not this year’s.
• Hyundai owns Boston Dynamics outright after taking SoftBank’s remaining stake in July, a deal reported around $325 million.
• How many Atlases are already walking the Georgia floor was not disclosed.

Austin AUS

Cybercab fares in limited areas since 3 Sep 2026. Hours to 11 p.m. as of 4 Oct; 24/7 is a this-month target, not a promise.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: fares · Zoox: testing

Dallas DAL

Unofficial. Cars are on the lot; Tesla has not posted a Cybercab fare date. A spotter’s “before end of month” is the aggressive read.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: staging · Zoox:

Houston HOU

Staging spotted in late September. No passenger date. Same pattern as Dallas, a step behind the photos.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: staging · Zoox: testing

Miami MIA

Early-October staging reports. Unsupervised Model Y already runs. No Cybercab fare date.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: staging · Zoox: testing

Las Vegas LAS

Permit clock, not a grand opening. Nevada’s network certificate allows up to 5,000 vehicles. Paid rides had not started in early October. Expect Model Y before any Cybercab.

Waymo: invited · Tesla: announced · Cybercab: none · Zoox: fares

Phoenix PHX

On Tesla’s old expansion list and still described as preparations, not a date. Waymo has run this city for years.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: announced · Cybercab: none · Zoox:

Orlando MCO

Model Y unsupervised is live. No public Cybercab staging story yet, so the cab itself is a 2027 watch, not a fall one.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: none · Zoox:

Tampa TPA

Same as Orlando: rides now, purpose-built cab later. Waymo’s own Tampa service was still ramping after a 1 Sep start.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: riding · Cybercab: none · Zoox:

SF Bay Area SFO

Safety driver still required. Do not count this as a robotaxi city in the unsupervised sense. Regulation, not a parking lot, is the gate.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: supervised · Cybercab: none · Zoox: free

Charlotte CLT

Both Waymo and Tesla show up as planned or testing. That is a map pin, not a month.

Waymo: testing · Tesla: testing · Cybercab: none · Zoox:

Seattle SEA

Waymo has safety drivers in the area. Washington still lacks a driverless framework, so a fare date is not the binding constraint — the law is.

Waymo: testing · Tesla: none · Cybercab: none · Zoox: testing

San Diego SAN

Public Waymo rides opened 1 Sep 2026 and were still ramping in early October. Riders book the Ojai minivan. Zoox is mapping, not carrying passengers.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: none · Cybercab: none · Zoox: testing

Los Angeles LAX

Waymo’s public driverless service is live. Zoox has a test presence, not fares.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: none · Cybercab: none · Zoox: testing

Nashville BNA

Waymo already gives public driverless rides. A depot near the airport, about 80,000 square feet with Lyft, is scheduled to open 12 Oct to support hundreds of vehicles.

Waymo: riding · Tesla: none · Cybercab: none · Zoox:

Pinehurst Station is open

Sound Transit’s first infill stop on the 1 Line, in north Seattle. Link is now 51 stations.

The 2 Line crossed the lake

Light rail over the floating bridge, with Mercer Island and Judkins Park.

Everett Link is in public review

Draft study for 16 miles and six stations from Lynnwood City Center to downtown Everett.

Ballard Link is aimed at Seattle Center

Funded through Seattle Center. The rest of the way to Market Street needs more money to open the same year.

Graham Street is the next new station

An infill stop in the Rainier Valley, between Columbia City and Othello.

D Line reached Wilshire / La Cienega

Three new subway stations: La Brea, Fairfax, and La Cienega. Beverly Hills and Century City are the next section.

The LAX people mover is still due

It links the C and K lines at the LAX Metro Transit Center to the terminals.

Southeast Gateway Line is a long build

14.5 miles of light rail and nine stations from the A Line toward Artesia.

DART Silver Line is running

Commuter rail between Plano and DFW Airport. It is open, not a 2026 start.

Austin light rail is still on paper

Project Connect is in design. The thing you can ride now is a robotaxi, not a new train.

A central bus rapid transit line opened

One of the U.S. lines that started service this year, through the middle of Las Vegas.

No new rail opening on file

The local change is Waymo, which is already taking public rides. Muni Metro is the train you already have.

No new rail opening on file

Valley Metro light rail is the existing line. The new service here is Waymo, which is already public.