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Lyft subsidiary hires former ride-hail drivers to service Waymo robotaxis in Nashville

Lyft's Flexdrive unit will open an 80,000-square-foot facility to maintain autonomous vehicles, shifting some gig labor into depot infrastructure roles.

Updated Aug 25, 2026 · 08:22 UTC1 reports

The short version

  • Lyft subsidiary Flexdrive plans to open an 80,000-square-foot cleaning and maintenance facility in Nashville in October to service Waymo robotaxis.
  • The depot will employ about 70 full-time workers, with approximately half being former Lyft drivers transitioning into daily vehicle inspection, charging, and cleaning roles.
  • Autonomous vehicles require daily servicing at depots because they accumulate far more annual mileage than traditional rental cars without a human driver needing rest.
  • Later this year, riders will be able to hail Waymo autonomous vehicles through the Lyft smartphone application.

Key facts

  • Flexdrive plans to open an 80,000-square-foot depot in Nashville in October to service autonomous vehicles.[Business Insider]
  • The Nashville facility will employ approximately 70 full-time workers, roughly half of whom previously drove for Lyft.[Business Insider]
  • Flexdrive CEO John Parks stated robotaxis travel up to 100,000 miles per year, compared to roughly 40,000 miles for traditional rental fleet cars.[Business Insider]
  • Depot workers clean and charge autonomous vehicles about two to three times per day, whereas rental fleet cars are serviced every few months.[Business Insider]
  • Flexdrive manages about 15,000 traditional rental cars across 24 markets with around 100 employees.[Business Insider]
  • The Society for Human Resource Management estimates 22 million U.S. jobs have the technical potential to be displaced by AI and automation by 2030, with about 8 million realistically at risk.[Business Insider]

What remains uncertain

  • Waymo declined to disclose the exact total number of workers required to service its nationwide fleet of over 3,500 vehicles.[Business Insider]

Sources