Notes from the dock.
Most of these posts reference the owner dashboard — it runs publicly: live map, telemetry, earnings. No login, no email, no card.
What we're learning building the depot for autonomous fleets in Orlando — the operations, the economics, and the questions investors and owners keep asking us.
Every post shows when it was published and last updated. See how we research and update these pages — including how we separate confirmed fact from our own targets and projections.
How much does it cost to build a robotaxi depot?
A single 150kW fast-charge port runs $90k–$150k installed, the transformer takes 12 to 18 months, and the charger hardware is the smallest line item. The full cost stack with 2026 sourced figures, from a team building one — including what we won't disclose about our own budget, and why.
The best US cities to own a robotaxi.
Three layers have to stack: permissive law, live networks, and dense short-ride demand. The ranked 2026 list, the friction column of cities working against you, and the Florida wildcard — every claim dated and cited.
Tesla robotaxi in Las Vegas: approved for 5,000 cars.
Nevada cleared Tesla for up to 5,000 robotaxis in Clark County on August 20, with paid rides expected within about thirty days. What was actually approved, the four-network Vegas scoreboard, and why a 5,000-car ceiling is a ground-infrastructure story.
What is unsupervised FSD, and where is it actually live?
Six metros run Teslas with nobody in the driver's seat, on newly widened 6am–10pm hours — and not one of them is a customer's car. The city list with dates, the HW3 hardware gate, and what would have to change for your car to qualify.
The Tesla Network: what happened to “add your car”?
The 2016 Master Plan promised your Tesla could earn on a shared fleet. A decade on, the network runs seven metros and every car on it belongs to Tesla. The dated ledger of that inversion, and the four things that must exist before owners get in.
Is there a robotaxi index fund?
One robotaxi ETF now trades — CABZ, since January 2026 — but it is actively managed, so technically not an index fund; the real index funds cover the whole AV and EV shelf. The four tickers with dates and fees, and what paper exposure can never do.
How many rides does a robotaxi actually give per day?
Every earnings model on the internet stands on this number, and no operator publishes it. Waymo's disclosed rides divided by its disclosed fleet gives roughly 23–24 a day — with the division shown, plus the empty-miles problem nobody puts in the spreadsheet.
How to vet a robotaxi depot company.
Ten checks to run before you hand anyone a deposit or a Cybercab — registered entity, named founders, the real refund window, who holds title, every recurring fee, and what happens to your car if the company fails. We answer all ten for ourselves, including where the honest answer is “not yet.”
Cybercab vs Model Y: which robotaxi should you actually buy?
One robotaxi you can order tonight, one you cannot buy at all — and Tesla’s own fleet is still every bit Model Y. Real prices, the price-per-seat arithmetic that runs against the purpose-built car, the seven-year ledger of “owners can add their cars,” and the HW3 gate nobody prices in.
Add your Tesla to the robotaxi fleet: what cut does Tesla take?
Every “Tesla takes 25%” table you have seen traces to one aside from April 2019 — never reaffirmed, never retracted, and absent from every earnings call since. The dated ledger of what actually exists, and how to model ownership with the split labeled as the unknown it is.
Should you put your Cybercab in an LLC?
Florida is the only state that makes a vehicle’s owner strictly liable for what it does — so the entity question hits a robotaxi harder than a normal car. What an LLC shields, what pierces it, and the real cost ($125 to form, $138.75 a year).
What if your robotaxi operator goes out of business?
You hold the title — but the car sits behind someone else’s gate. The HyreCar and Getaround precedents, Florida’s possessory-lien statute, the bankruptcy stay, and the eight clauses to demand. Including where our own contract is weakest.
Can you write off a Cybercab?
The luxury-auto depreciation cap, the taxi carve-out that may lift it, 100% bonus depreciation after the July 2025 tax law — and the recapture bill nobody models. Every rule cited; not tax advice.
How to finance a Cybercab: what actually exists today.
No Cybercab loan product exists, because no order book exists — and this post says so in the first paragraph. The four lanes you’ll choose from, the day-one borrower checklist, and the unknowns no lender can underwrite yet.
Waymo vs Tesla robotaxi: the honest scoreboard.
Waymo runs ~500,000 paid rides a week across 11+ metros; Tesla runs six driverless cities with ~21 tracked cars. The dated scoreboard, the two engineering bets — and the difference that matters here: you can’t buy a Waymo.
Tesla Cybercab specs: what the EPA filing actually revealed.
47.6 kWh, ~293 miles, 5.5 mi/kWh, 3,113 lbs, 219 hp, two seats, no steering wheel. The dated spec sheet — read the way a fleet owner should read it, plus everything the filing still doesn’t tell you.
Can you own a robotaxi in another state? Remote ownership, explained.
Yes — the car’s address matters, yours doesn’t. Whose name stays on the title, who insures what, how the money reaches you, and the four things a remote owner actually needs. You never have to fly in.
Fractional robotaxi shares vs. owning the car outright.
Three products all say “own a robotaxi” — shares of a company, units of an LLC, or a title with your name on it. The title test, the accreditation question, eight questions to ask any platform, and what happens to each holder if the platform folds.
How do robotaxis charge? Wireless pads, hidden ports, and the depot power problem.
Nobody’s in the car to plug it in. The Cybercab’s wireless-only bet with observed 19–25 kW numbers, the NACS port hiding behind a bumper door on validation cars, worked charging math from the EPA filing — and why the scarce depot resource is the transformer, not the land.
How many Tesla robotaxis are there, really? Promised vs. deployed.
Seven metros live, six of them driverless — and community tracking counts roughly 21 active unsupervised cars. Both columns of the ledger, every number dated and sourced.
Is the Cybercab street legal? What the Zoox approval changes.
Not yet — and Zoox’s July 30 federal exemption shows the exact door Tesla still has to walk through. The no-steering-wheel legal map: what got approved, the 2,500-a-year cap, and the brake rule that could end it.
When will Cybercab deliveries start? The honest August 2026 answer.
Employee rides at Giga Texas, hundreds of cars staged — and a 2026 volume target that quietly disappeared. The dated ledger of every Cybercab promise, and what to do with the wait.
Where do robotaxis operate? The US city tracker.
Every US metro with live robotaxi service, with dates: Tesla’s seven markets (six unsupervised), Waymo’s eleven plus four announced, Zoox’s first paid city — and the infrastructure question every new city raises.
How much does robotaxi insurance cost? The honest state of Cybercab coverage.
The line that decides every earnings model, with the least data behind it. The $400–800/month planning band, what moves it, who insures what in a depot model, and how to prepare before quotes exist.
Why Florida became robotaxi country.
Three driverless metros turned on in one month. The plain-English read of Florida’s AV law — no human required, no permit gauntlet, one statewide rulebook — and why depot #1 is here.
Passive income ideas in 2026: where does a robotaxi actually rank?
Rental property, dividends, vending, car-sharing — and the new entrant, judged on the column every other list deletes: how proven the income actually is. Our own row scores worst on that column, and we say so.
Is a Cybercab a good investment? Honest answer: nobody knows yet.
We're biased and we lead with the bear case anyway: no order book, no owner earnings history, infant insurance market. Plus the bull math, who it fits, and how to test the thesis for $0–450.
How to start a robotaxi business in 2026 (what's actually possible today).
You can't deploy a robotaxi today — nobody can. The five positioning moves that matter before the order book opens: models, skeptic's budget, the capped resource, and day-one readiness.
Robotaxi in Miami: two networks, two zones, one guide.
Miami is Florida’s only two-network robotaxi city — Waymo since January, Tesla since July. Where each zone runs, what rides cost, and how owners eventually join.
Robotaxi in Tampa: service area, fares, and how to ride.
Live since July 21 across downtown, Ybor, Tampa Heights, and West Tampa — the zone, the fares, what’s not covered yet, and when owners join.
Robotaxi in Orlando: service area, fares, and how to ride.
Driverless Model Ys started carrying passengers in our depot’s home metro on July 21 — no one in the driver’s seat, running the airport corridor. What launched, why the zone is a tell, and the infrastructure question the ownership era brings.
Can you buy a Tesla Cybercab yet? Price & order status.
The honest, dated answer — where availability really stands, how ordering is expected to work, fleet vs. personal ownership, and how to be ready on day one.
Cybercab earnings calculator.
Set fleet size, utilization, and financing — see monthly gross, depot fees by tier, owner-side costs, and an estimated take-home range. Live, as you change your assumptions. Projections, not guarantees.
Robotaxi fleet management: your Cybercab options in 2026.
Who will manage your Cybercab? An honest comparison of the four options on the table — doing it yourself, flat-fee operators, SPV/equity structures, and revenue-share depots — with worked numbers for each.
How much does a Cybercab actually make? Owner economics, netted honestly.
Conservative revenue assumptions, every cost line owners forget, a worked monthly P&L at three duty cycles, and real breakeven math. A projection, not a promise — here's how the numbers actually pencil.
Where to park your fleet of Cybercabs.
A practical guide to depot options for Tesla Cybercab fleet owners — what a Cybercab depot actually does, physical depots vs. fleet management software, what to look for, what it costs, and why Orlando, FL is one of the strongest markets in the country.
Robotaxis vs Uber & Lyft: why autonomous transportation could dramatically lower ride costs.
The single largest cost in most ride-share trips is human labor — that's the pricing floor Uber and Lyft have to maintain to keep drivers on the road. A plain-English breakdown of where the dollars go, what changes when you remove the driver, and what cheaper-per-mile transportation could mean for consumers, owners, and investors.
Owning a Cybercab as a fleet vehicle: a primer.
Tesla is delivering Cybercabs in waves. The most common question we hear from prospective owners: "How is owning a Cybercab different from owning a Model 3?" Here are the three ownership styles, the operational tax that surprises people, and what owners can realistically expect.
What is a robotaxi depot? The 2026 guide.
Robotaxis are launching, but no one's building the place they go between rides. Here's what a robotaxi depot actually does, why gas stations and parking lots don't fit, and where this category is heading.