NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Lyft's fleet management subsidiary, Flexdrive, has opened an 80,000-square-foot depot in Nashville to charge, clean and maintain Waymo's autonomous vehicles, a facility the companies say will allow hundreds more robotaxis to join the city's fleet.
The depot occupies a former post office near Nashville International Airport and is scheduled to begin receiving Waymo vehicles on Oct. 12, Lyft said in an Oct. 2 statement. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday marked the building's completion, and the site will run around the clock on three shifts, WSMV reported.
Vehicles will drive themselves to the depot at least once a day and pull up to one of dozens of fast-charging stations, where crews inspect, clean and charge them before they return to service, according to WSMV. The building also has maintenance bays for high-voltage repairs and secure parts storage. "They are on the road, giving rides, serving the community the vast majority of the hours of the day," said Stephen Hayes of Lyft. "That means that they need to come back and top up on charging."
Annabel Chang of Waymo told the station the site was chosen in part because it is close to the airport, where Waymo has been testing as it prepares to expand service. "Once this depot becomes formally opened, we can have hundreds of vehicles basically join the fleet," she said. "That will mean, from the passenger perspective, shorter wait times."
Chang said Waymo vehicles are designed to stay on the road for at least eight hours before they need charging and service, and are called back early if a rider leaves something behind or a car gets dirty. Much of the process is automated, she said, with vehicles displaying a message when charging is complete so a worker can unplug them and they can drive themselves onward.
The depot brings more than 70 full-time jobs to Nashville this year, including technicians, fleet operations managers and maintenance specialists, and Lyft has hired dozens of former rideshare drivers to staff it, WSMV reported. Chauncey Thompson, a former Lyft driver now servicing the vehicles, said he tries to apply the standards he kept as a driver. "The main thing that I can do is just clean up the vehicle and create my first impression about how they get in the car and how they view it," he said.
The site anchors a partnership that began matching Nashville riders with Waymo vehicles through the Lyft app on Sept. 9, making Nashville the first market where Waymo rides are available on both companies' apps. Lyft and Waymo dispatch the vehicles from a single fleet across both networks, and Flexdrive handles fleet management, the companies said at the time.
Hayes told WSMV the depot is the first purpose-built autonomous vehicle facility in the country and could serve as a model for future Flexdrive depots in other cities. The companies plan to grow the fleet and workforce at the site and are exploring additional depot locations in Nashville as demand grows, the station reported.