A sprawling new depot near Nashville International Airport officially opened its doors Monday, giving Lyft and Waymo a home base to service the self-driving cars now picking up riders across central Nashville. The 80,000-square-foot Flexdrive facility sits on Ellory Court in Donelson, and it is already putting people to work even as the robots take the wheel on the road.
The depot has created more than 70 full-time jobs in Nashville, according to WKRN, with staff on hand to charge, clean and repair the vehicles once they roll in on their own. That last part is not a typo: the Waymo cars drive themselves to the facility for maintenance, according to WZTV, which first reported details of the Elm Hill Pike-area operation. WKRN reports the Donelson site sits about eight minutes from BNA and 20 minutes from Broadway, and that Lyft and Waymo plan to eventually base hundreds of vehicles out of the hub as the service scales.
Same Price, Whether a Human or a Robot Shows Up
For riders wondering if summoning a driverless car costs more, Lyft says the answer is no. Stephen Hayes, the company's VP of Autonomous and Fleet, gave a flat answer when WZTV asked whether pricing differs between the two options: “No.” Lyft's own blog post announcing the rollout states that riders will pay the same amount whether they are matched with a Waymo vehicle or a human driver, through its hub announcement.
Waymo's own executive struck a similar note without promising an identical number every time. Annabel Chang told WZTV she expects Waymo rides to land close to what Uber and Lyft charge, with one key difference: “I think you'll be closely priced, but the difference is you don't have to tip.” Waymo also indicated more variety is coming to its app, with Chang saying riders should expect to see more vehicle platforms available over time, per the station's report.
How the Matching and Opt-Out System Works
Riders requesting Standard, Priority Pickup, Wait and Save or Extra Comfort trips are now eligible to be matched with a Waymo vehicle, Lyft says. Anyone who would rather keep a human in the driver's seat can decline an autonomous match and request a driver instead, or opt out of autonomous rides altogether, according to the same Lyft hub post. For now, those self-driving matches only apply to trips that start and end within the central Nashville service area, and Lyft has been upfront that Waymo availability remains limited with plans to expand gradually.
Behind that pricing promise is Lyft's broader stance on how its algorithm sets fares in the first place. The company says its pricing engine leans on local, real-time conditions — driver availability, ride requests, time of day and traffic — and that a two-minute window can produce a meaningfully different quote, according to Lyft's pricing blog. Lyft also says riders with the same pickup point, destination and timing see the same upfront base price, though promotional discounts can vary by account, and that its average fee runs around 14% of what passengers pay, well under its 30% cap. Lyft's help center separately notes that quoted prices can shift if a rider's route, destination or trip length changes, and that demand spikes from rush hour, events or bad weather can push prices up.
A Fast-Growing Fleet Since April
Waymo's Nashville footprint didn't appear overnight. The company began offering ride-hailing service in the city on April 7, according to the Nashville Banner, and has since grown to more than 100 vehicles operating across a 60-square-mile area, per the Los Angeles Times. WZTV reports the vehicles run in full-autonomy mode across that same 60-square-mile range and are being trained for highway driving and airport pickups.
Accounts differ on exactly how close that airport and interstate rollout is. WZTV reports Waymo says it is in advanced stages of training its vehicles for pickups and drop-offs at BNA, while WKRN reports the vehicles still do not operate on the interstate or travel to the airport, though that is expected to change soon. Either way, Waymo has pointed to its own safety data to make its case for expansion: the company says its vehicles have logged 92% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes and 82% fewer injury-causing crashes than the average human driver over comparable mileage, according to the Nashville Banner. Waymo has also acknowledged the rollout will bring changes to certain driving jobs even as new ones are created as the service scales, the outlet reports.
Nashville riders curious how local autonomous pricing might eventually compare to other markets won't find a clean local answer yet — no independent, trip-by-trip comparison between Waymo and human-driven rides in Nashville has been published. A Bay Area sample from data firm Obi, cited by TechCrunch, found Waymo rides averaging $19.69 compared with $17.47 for Uber and $15.47 for Lyft, with Waymo also showing the longest average wait time at 5.74 minutes. The Nashville Banner has separately reported one Nashville rider's Waymo trip from Nolensville Road to the North Nashville Transit Center cost around twice as much as the same trip on other services, though that is a single account rather than a broader study.
