A robotaxi depot is an off-street facility where a driverless ride-hail fleet parks between trips and overnight to charge, get cleaned and inspected, and receive light maintenance.
Key features
- Depots run around the clock and draw large amounts of power. Fleet chargers commonly run around 60 to 100 kilowatts per stall, and large depots are being planned at roughly 4 to 12 megawatts.
- Most depot leases reported so far are in industrial and flex buildings or surface lots; fleet services companies increasingly run them for the operators.
- Siting matters: an open lot beside homes, operated overnight, can draw complaints about reverse alerts, lights and activity.
Alternatives
- Bulk staging can move to enclosed garages with spare capacity, while small numbers of vehicles wait and charge at distributed sites such as building mobility courts, closer to the next trip.
Related terms: Fleet Staging, Robotaxi, Mobility Court, Pull-Through Mobility Court, Mobility Hub.