Ground Signal

Robotaxis are a real estate business. Every city launch needs a depot with chargers, cleaning bays and repair staff. Nashville's new one is 80,000 sq ft. I track where these sites go, how much power they need and which cities are writing rules for them. Follow for a new depot or permit every weekday.

Milence opened its fifth Belgian truck hub last week, in Temse between Antwerp and Ghent. Eight bays, and four have megawatt chargers up to 1.5 MW. Its three earlier MCS sites in Antwerp, Zwolle and Landvetter got one 1.2 MW unit each. Temse is the first with four.

Aurora's truck build at Roush is about six weeks behind plan. Parts supply, component quality and end-of-line testing slowed the first month. It now targets 20 driverless trucks a week by early December and 200+ by end of February. Right now the limit is the factory, not lanes.

Charger Logistics wants to buy up to 500 Aurora driverless trucks for 2027 and 2028. The shift is who carries the capital. Charger would own the trucks and pay Aurora for the driver as a service. It's a non-binding MOU. 500 is under 2% of Aurora's 30,000-truck goal for 2030.

Depot Watch: 180 Charles St, Malden, Mass. Waymo leased the whole 65,000 sq ft building, two blocks from Malden Center station. The owner marketed it with a 2,000-amp power upgrade. Waymo hasn't said how it'll use it. Massachusetts still has to legalize driverless rides first.

Waymo got Las Vegas airport access this week, the second robotaxi service cleared at LAS after Zoox. Nevada approved fares in August, but the curb took a separate sign-off from Clark County Aviation. Pickups run from dedicated AV zones on the ground level of Terminals 1 and 3.

Waymo's first Toronto riders come in 2028, but the depot deal is already signed. Element Fleet, which manages 1.5M+ vehicles, will run charging, cleaning and maintenance on site, the same setup Moove has in Phoenix and Avis has in Dallas.

NHTSA proposed new lighting rules today for cars with no steering wheel or pedals. They'd drop the manual turn signal, hazard and high-beam switches. Robotaxis could add optional cyan lamps that light only when software is driving. Comments run 30 days from publication Oct 26.

Depot Watch: Santa Monica's Main Library garage. The council voted 6-0 to negotiate letting Zoox park up to 150 robotaxis in city lots, mainly the library's first underground level. The city expects $500k+ a year. It's parking only. Zoox is setting up charging elsewhere.

Amazon's trucking partners in Germany just got wider access to Aral pulse's ~35 e-truck charging sites. That includes the A10 megawatt park near Berlin. Six drive-through bays, each with an MCS and a CCS plug. 20 to 80% takes about 30 minutes.

D.C.'s likely next mayor wants the Council to hold Waymo legislation until next year. The bill still on the table would cap operators at 200 vehicles and keep commercial service off until 2028. Waymo has already lined up three charge-and-service sites in the District while it waits.

Waymo opened fully driverless rides to everyone today in San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa. San Antonio International Airport is in the service area from day one of public access. Waymo says hundreds of thousands of people in these cities already rode while access was limited.

Tesla says Megacharger projects in Southern California can wait 3+ years in the utility queue for power. Its workaround is PG&E's Flex Connect. Sites run on spare grid capacity and get throttled when the grid is tight. Tesla expects a typical project to open 2+ years sooner.

Lyft said Waymo cars would start moving into its new Nashville depot on Oct 12. It's 80,000 sq ft in an old post office near the airport. Flexdrive runs it 24/7 on three shifts. Chargers, cleaning, repair bays. Built for hundreds of cars. The fleet can only grow as fast as the yard.

Robotaxi firms leased nearly 1M SF of industrial space this year. Cushman & Wakefield data via Bisnow covers Lyft, Uber, Waymo and Zoox. They leased 830K SF combined in 2022-2025. NYC searches run 50K-100K SF in Long Island City and the South Bronx. ConEd hookups can take years.

NHTSA moved the AV Framework Part 555 comment clock to Sep 30. FR 2026-17741 (91 FR 55975, Docket NHTSA-2026-1552) extends interim guidance comments on commercial deployment exemptions after Auto Innovators asked for 30 more days. This is the exemption playbook clock, not a single-vehicle Special Order.

ALVEST launched TLD Robotics by folding EasyMile into airport AV fleets. The Sep 16 company release combines EasyMile, TractEasy, and TLD driverless GSE under one brand. It cites more than 35 active sites, 15-plus airports, and over 50,000 autonomous missions. Airport cargo yards are already buying the overnight footprint.

San Diego voted 8-0 for AV depot and curb powers it does not hold. Sep 14 Item 201 (R-2027-49) urges the state to restore local control over AV passenger service. It asks operators to keep charging hubs and fleet facilities away from homes, schools, clinics, and public-safety sites, and asks the Airport Authority to bar AVs at SAN. Kidder Mathews' 2Q26 report already lists Waymo's 105,550 sqft lease at Chula Vista's Heritage Industrial Center.

May Mobility filed a public-market path at about $1.4 billion. The ACP Holdings (ACGC) combo targets up to $337 million gross proceeds with a $120 million committed PIPE. May says fleet partners own the vehicles, depots, and maintenance under Autonomy-as-a-Service. Uber Arlington is still listed for Q4 2026 or Q1 2027. Capital clears before stalls do.

Culver City tees AV fleet depot rules for Monday consent adoption. Sep 14 file 27-222 was urgency at four-fifths or a regular introduction. Culver City News reported the urgency failed and the regular ordinance was introduced 4-0. Sep 28 file 27-335 puts adoption on the consent calendar. Cities still zone the overnight depots when the state owns the road.