Lyft Will “Significantly Grow” Its Waymo Robotaxi Fleet in Nashville by Year-End

Lyft plans to “significantly grow” its Waymo robotaxi fleet in Nashville by year-end, the company said on Thursday, November 5, stepping up efforts to earn more from self-driving cars by both managing fleets and matching riders to them. Airport rides on Waymo autonomous vehicles are also “coming soon,” according to the company.

Lyft gets paid in two ways in Nashville: through Waymo rides booked on its app, and through a fee for each available vehicle it maintains, charges and cleans, chief financial officer Michael Brous told Reuters. Its Flexdrive unit has serviced the Nashville fleet since June, and Lyft opened an 80,000-square-foot depot in the city in October to charge, clean and maintain the cars.

Brous declined to give fleet size or utilization figures, two common measures of a robotaxi service’s progress, but said early indications were good, “as evidenced by expanding the service area, growing the fleet, opening up airport rides, and then we’ll take it from there.” He also cautioned that robotaxis would take “a long time” to scale meaningfully, citing hardware, regulation, operational challenges and a broader backlash against AI over data centers and job losses.

The Nashville push comes the same week Waymo said it will end its exclusivity agreement with Uber in Austin and Atlanta from January 2028. Waymo wants its own customers; Lyft wants to be the company that operates the fleets. Nashville is where that second model is being tested at scale.