How much does it cost to build a robotaxi depot?

“Average cost to build a robotaxi fleet depot” is a question people are already asking AI assistants, and the honest answer is that no all-in industry average exists — nobody has built enough of them yet. What does exist is good 2026 data on every line item, because a robotaxi depot is assembled from things the fleet-electrification world already prices daily: utility interconnection, chargers, industrial land, and a small operations staff. Here is the stack, line by line, from a team that is building one.

Line one: power infrastructure — the budget and the schedule

Everything in a depot ultimately plugs into this line. Per 2026 installation guidance drawn from DOE and NREL materials, a DC fast charging installation runs $75,000–$150,000+ fully installed per station, with a single 150kW port at $90,000–$150,000 and 350kW ports reaching $200,000 or more (Qmerit, 2026; GreenLancer, 2026). The consistent surprise for first-time builders: the charger hardware is usually the smallest line item. Make-ready electrical work and civil construction — the utility service upgrade, trenching, conduit, switchgear, concrete — typically drive 50–70% of the total.

And inside that make-ready work sits the piece that controls the whole schedule: the transformer. Pad-mounted distribution transformers price at $40,000–$300,000 per unit and carried 40–65 week lead times through 2026 (Fortune Business Insights, 2026; Terrapin, 2026). A standard 1 MVA unit that quoted at eight weeks in 2023 quotes at 12–18 months by mid-2026, and Wood Mackenzie projects the shortage worsening into 2027 as data centers, industrial electrification, and grid replacement all compete for the same factory slots (Ryan Transformers, 2026). The practical rule we live by: a depot builder who hasn't started utility interconnection hasn't really started, whatever the site photos show.

The design decision that moves the bill most

Here's the part most cost guides skip, because it requires knowing how the cars actually work. Worst-case power math for a 50-stall depot looks scary: 50 stalls of 25kW wireless charging is 1.25 megawatts of potential simultaneous draw. But robotaxis don't charge like that. From the Cybercab's EPA filing (47.6 kWh pack, ~5.5 mi/kWh), a 180-mile service day consumes roughly 33 kWh per car — so a full 50-cab depot needs about 1.65 MWh per night, and spread across a 10-hour overnight window that's an average draw of ~165 kW. Derived math, labeled as such — but it's why charging topology, not stall count, is the real budget decision. A depot that schedules charging overnight on cheaper Level 2 and wireless circuits, holding a handful of DC fast ports for midday turnarounds, buys a fraction of the peak-power infrastructure a naive design would.

Tesla's own build choices say the same thing: its Austin robotaxi hub pairs 48 Supercharger stalls with up to 80 wireless charging pads — fast charge for turnaround, slow-and-cheap for dwell. (Tesla has not published wireless-pad pricing, so nobody outside Tesla can cost that line yet; we track the builder landscape in the depot explainer.)

Line two: the land

The most local line on the sheet. For scale context in our own market: Orlando industrial asking rents averaged $11.62 per square foot NNN in late 2025, per Avison Young's market report, with outlying corridors at $8–10. But a depot is closer to industrial outdoor storage than to warehouse space, that category prices deal-by-deal, and the honest statement is that the land line is decided less by acreage than by what's under it: a lot with existing heavy electrical service skips the longest, most expensive line above, which is why operators screen sites on power first and location economics second. Add the unglamorous civil basics — paving, fencing, lighting, cameras, a cleaning bay — all site-dependent, none exotic.

Line three: people

Smaller than most people guess, and for once there's a disclosed industry number: Pony.ai told investors that three on-site staff per 100 robotaxis keeps routine operations running — cleaning, charging, inspections — on its Q2 2026 earnings call (August 25, 2026). At 50-stall scale that implies a very small crew plus a site lead; our version of that role is the Orlando Dock Manager we're hiring now. Staffing scales with fleet, which is also why depot economics favor consolidation over fifty owners running fifty driveways.

Line four: insurance, security, compliance

The depot carries premises and garage-keeper coverage; the vehicle's own commercial AV policy stays an owner-side line, in the $400–$800/month planning band that market is still forming around. Florida adds no state AV permit layer — one of the reasons depot math pencils differently by state — while security is mostly the civil line above plus monitoring software.

So what's the number?

An illustration, assembled from the cited ranges — not a quote, not our budget. Take a 50-stall depot with eight 150kW DC fast ports and an overnight Level 2/wireless profile: the fast ports alone pencil at $720,000–$1.2 million installed, the transformer and switchgear add tens to hundreds of thousands more depending on what the site already has, and land, paving, and fit-out ride on top of that. Stack it honestly and a ground-up 50-stall depot is a seven-figure project dominated by electrical infrastructure — and a power-rich site conversion is dramatically cheaper than a bare-lot build. That spread is exactly why the siting decision is the business.

What this means if you're not building one

Most readers of this page will never pour concrete — they're weighing whether to use a depot. The cost stack above is the case in one sheet: seven figures of infrastructure, a 12–18 month power queue, and staffing that only pencils at fleet scale are exactly the things an individual owner can't justify for one car, and the reason depot stalls — not vehicles — are the capped resource in every metro. It's also the diligence lens for evaluating anyone in this category, ours included: ask any depot company where its transformer is in the queue, and you'll learn more than from any rendering. The full checklist is in how to vet a robotaxi depot company. For institutional fleets weighing build-versus-buy directly, our operators page is the right door.

Robotaxi depot costs: FAQ

How much does it cost to build a robotaxi depot?

No published industry average exists. From 2026 component data: $90,000–$150,000 per installed 150kW fast-charge port with make-ready at 50–70% of the total, a $40,000–$300,000 transformer on a 12–18 month wait, plus land, civil work, and a small staff — a ground-up 50-stall build is a seven-figure project.

What's the single biggest cost?

The electrical make-ready, not the chargers. Utility upgrades, transformer, switchgear, trenching, and concrete drive 50–70% of charging totals per DOE/NREL-drawn 2026 guidance.

How long does it take?

The transformer is the clock: 12–18 months for a standard 1 MVA unit in mid-2026, against eight weeks in 2023. Construction fits inside that window; interconnection doesn't.

Can an existing lot be converted?

Yes, and it's the cheap path if the site has heavy power already. Screening sites on existing electrical service is the biggest cost decision a depot builder makes.

What does DockDuty's depot cost?

We haven't published our budget and won't while negotiations are live. What's public: 50 founding stalls targeted for Greater Orlando in Q4 2026, no lease signed yet — and the owner-side pricing, which is published in full.