Lyft opened an 80,000-square-foot facility in Tennessee. It isn't a data center.
Lyft has opened an 80,000-square-foot facility in Nashville dedicated to servicing and maintaining Waymo's autonomous robotaxi fleet. This depot represents a growing trend of ride-hailing companies investing in physical infrastructure to support the operational needs of self-driving vehicle technology.
Why it matters
It highlights the shift in the autonomous vehicle industry from software development to the physical logistics and maintenance infrastructure required for mass-market robotaxi deployment.
Lyft's Flexdrive arm just opened a depot for self-driving cars in Nashville. Heather Diehl/Getty Images A tech company just opened a big warehouse outside of Nashville — but it isn't full of servers. Instead, it's a depot for charging and repairing self-driving cars. Flexdrive, Lyft's car-rental arm, will run the facility to service Waymo's robotaxis. A former US Postal Service facility near Nashville isn't housing servers. Instead, it's been renovated for self-driving cars. The facility opened on Thursday under the management of Flexdrive, Lyft's car-rental arm. Later this month, autonomous vehicles from Alphabet-backed Waymo will start pulling in when they need a charge, repairs, a clean, or other maintenance in between shuttling passengers around the Southern city, Lyft said on Friday.
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