Lyft, Uber, Waymo and Zoox lease nearly 1M sf of robotaxi industrial space this year

Lyft, Uber, Alphabet-owned Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox signed nearly 1 million square feet of industrial leases this year, topping the 830,000 square feet the same four companies leased from 2022 through 2025 combined. The buildings all do the same unglamorous work, according to Cushman & Wakefield data obtained by Bisnow: storing, cleaning, charging and repairing autonomous ride-hailing fleets.

The disclosed deals are small and concentrate in states where the service already runs. Lyft subsidiary FlexDrive began construction in April on an 80,000-square-foot Nashville depot that supports Waymo's driverless ride-hailing there; Uber took 50,000 square feet in Houston in June for a robotaxi depot and charging facility it plans to operate from in 2027; and Zoox signed 34,000 square feet in Hayward in May for a logistics and staging hub for finished vehicles, down the street from the 219,000-square-foot manufacturing space it opened in 2025, The Real Deal reported.

As of June, robotaxis were allowed to operate in 26 states, yet many of the companies are shopping for space without disclosing their identities, wary of scrutiny or of tipping off opponents, Bisnow reports. Reed Vestal, CEO of Houston brokerage and investment management firm Junction Commercial Real Estate, told Bisnow the firms have been good at not disclosing what they are doing, and he guessed the industry could need tens of millions of square feet within a decade. His projection is a broker's, not a model; the nearly 1 million feet leased this year is the number with a dataset attached.

For industrial owners, this demand lands where land is scarcest. Depot siting likely follows rider density and electrical capacity rather than the highway interchanges that anchor big-box logistics, pushing requirements toward infill sites. Small-bay construction is already the fastest-inflating corner of the asset class, with Cushman & Wakefield's cost guide putting small industrial projects at $144 per square foot, as this publication reported in September. Fleets that must be charged and cleaned near customers compete for the same parcels as last-mile delivery tenants, which benefits owners who already hold them.

Tesla is working the same problem from the other end. Its vice president of engineering, Lars Moravy, said on a January call with analysts that the company's existing service centers and charging stations let it get ahead of robotaxi demand, and he claimed Tesla is the only company capable of scaling at the rate autonomy requires. Tesla is not one of the four companies in the Cushman leasing figures, and the exclusivity claim is the company's own.

Bisnow reported that Waymo, Zoox, Lyft, Uber and Tesla did not respond to its requests for comment and information about their real estate activity. The next read on this demand is more likely to show up in absorption data than in announcements, since many of the tenants, per Bisnow, are signing without putting their names on the lease.