How to vet a robotaxi depot company

We’re writing this as one of the companies you’d be vetting. That’s an obvious conflict, so here’s how we’ve handled it: every check below is something you can verify without asking us, and we’ve answered each one for DockDuty in plain terms — including where the honest answer is that a thing doesn’t exist yet. If a check makes us look worse than a competitor, it stays in.

The context that makes this necessary: as of August 2026, Tesla has not opened public Cybercab ordering, and it has not published the terms under which a privately owned Cybercab joins the robotaxi network. Everyone in this category — us included — is building ahead of that. That’s a reasonable thing to do. Describing it as already done is not.

1. Is there a registered legal entity, and can you find it?

A depot company is asking you to enter a contract. Find out who the counterparty legally is. Every US state runs a free, searchable business registry — Florida’s is Sunbiz, Texas runs SOSDirect, and every other state has an equivalent. Search the company name. You want an active entity, a filing date, and a registered agent.

A marketing site with no entity named anywhere, or terms and privacy pages that 404, means there is no identifiable party on the other side of your agreement.

DockDuty: DockDuty LLC is an active Florida limited liability company. Search “DockDuty” on Sunbiz and you’ll find it — we’d rather you look it up than take our word for the number.

2. Are the founders named, with histories you can check?

Anonymous operators taking deposits is the single clearest warning sign in any pre-launch category. Named founders can be searched, contacted, and held to what they said. Anonymous ones can close a domain and open another.

Check that the names on the site are real people with findable histories, and that the bios match what those histories actually say. Inflated titles are worth noticing — not because a modest background is disqualifying, but because a company willing to stretch a bio will stretch other things.

DockDuty: Jeremy Hecht and David Hecht, named on the about page and in the press kit, with contact routes that reach a founder directly rather than a support queue. Neither of us lives in Florida — Jeremy is in Berkshire County, Massachusetts and David is in Ventura County, California. DockDuty LLC is a Florida company, the dock is in Greater Orlando, and a full-time Orlando-based Dock Manager will run the floor (the role is posted). We say it plainly because a company that will shade its own founder bios will shade the things you can’t check — and because running a Florida operation from two other states is the same arrangement we’re asking owners to trust.

3. What exactly is refundable, and for how long?

This is where the language gets slipperiest. “Fully refundable” can mean refundable for 48 hours less a processing charge, after which it converts to a non-refundable credit toward future participation. That is a legitimate structure if it’s disclosed — but it is not what most people hear in the word “refundable.”

Ask for the window in units of time, the deductions in dollars, and what the money becomes when the window closes. For a depot that hasn’t opened, the deposit should stay refundable until the service actually starts. You are pre-paying for something that does not yet exist; the refund right is the thing protecting you if it never does.

DockDuty: the $450 founding reservation stays fully refundable until your Cybercab is onboarded at the dock — not 48 hours, not until we break ground. It credits in full against the $1,000 onboarding fee, so $550 is due at intake. Reservations get refunded sometimes, and the public order book can go down as well as up because of it.

4. Can you see the product before you pay for it?

Depot operations are half physical and half software. The physical half can’t be demonstrated before a site opens — but the software half can, and a company that has built it will show you. A dashboard behind a “request a demo” form is a screenshot. A dashboard you can open and click is a product.

DockDuty: the owner dashboard runs publicly with sample fleet data — live map, telemetry, earnings, vehicle commands. No login, no email, no card.

5. Does the roadmap admit what doesn’t exist yet?

Look for the gap between the present tense and reality. Sites in this category have described fleets as operating, Cybercabs as shipping to private buyers, and depot capacity as available in cities where no lease exists. Those statements are checkable against Tesla’s own ordering page and public filings, and they don’t survive the check.

A roadmap that separates built from planned, with dates attached, is doing you a favor. A site written entirely in the present tense is asking you not to look closely.

DockDuty: our first dock is targeted to open in Greater Orlando in Q4 2026 and does not exist today. We do not have a signed lease to announce. The platform, the Tesla Fleet API integration, live Stripe payments, and the reservation book are built and running now. Miami breaks ground when Orlando reaches roughly 40–45 of 50 stalls reserved. Insurance and compliance arrangements are still in progress. That list is on the homepage in the same order.

6. Who holds title to the vehicle?

There are two very different products being sold in this category under similar language. In one, you buy a car, the title is in your name, and a company operates it for you. In the other, you buy an equity interest in an entity that owns cars. The second is a security-like instrument with different risks, different tax treatment, and a different answer to “can I take my car back.”

Neither is inherently wrong. But you should know which one you’re buying, and the contract should say so unambiguously. If the structure involves an SPV, pooled ownership, or an accreditation requirement, that is the second kind — regardless of how the marketing describes it.

DockDuty: you buy the Cybercab, title and registration are in your own name in your own state, and title never transfers to us. There is no fund, no pooled entity, and no accreditation gate. We wrote about the distinction here.

7. Is every recurring fee in one number?

Depot pricing has at least three components: what you pay to hold the space, what you pay per ride, and what you pay once at intake. Some companies publish one and mention the others later. Ask for the total monthly cost at your actual fleet size, in writing, before you commit.

Also worth asking: does the company get paid when your car doesn’t earn? A pure percentage aligns the operator with your revenue; a pure fixed fee does not. Most real structures are a mix, which is fine — you just want to see the whole shape of it.

DockDuty: $450 per stall per month for one to two cabs, dropping with fleet size, plus a 15% platform fee on rides that falls to 13% at five to six cabs and 11% at seven or more. A $1,000 onboarding fee per cab, with your $450 reservation credited against it. Vehicle price, taxes, registration, insurance premiums, and third-party freight are yours and are not routed through us. The calculator runs the whole thing at your fleet size.

8. Who insures the car while it’s parked in their lot?

A vehicle sitting in someone else’s facility for months is a coverage question with a real answer. Ask who carries what: your policy, their garage-keepers coverage, or a combination, and what happens if the operator’s policy lapses. Operator-arranged insurance disappears with the operator.

DockDuty: owners carry their own vehicle policy and we verify it at intake; our own facility coverage is part of the site work still in progress. We’d rather say that plainly than imply a completed insurance stack we don’t yet have. Our breakdown of Cybercab insurance costs is here.

9. What happens if they go out of business?

This is the check almost nobody runs, and it’s the one that matters most, because your asset is physically in their possession. Title settles who owns the car. It does not settle who is holding it during a bankruptcy.

Ask for: a written wind-down provision, an express lien waiver, a maximum notice period for retrieving your vehicle, month-to-month terms with no minimum and no early-termination penalty, and a documented process for returning keys and credentials. Understand that a deposit sitting in an operating account becomes an unsecured claim if the company fails, no matter what the refund clause promises — so weigh the structural clauses more heavily than the promise.

DockDuty: our reservation agreement covers title, no lock-in, a 30-day ceiling on pickup, and an automatic deposit refund if we cease operations — and we’ve written publicly that the last clause is a cash promise from a company that by definition may have no cash. The full analysis, including the Florida lien statute and the bankruptcy mechanics, is here — it screens us by the same eight clauses it hands you.

10. Does the pitch depend on numbers nobody has yet?

Earnings projections for Cybercabs currently range from about $70 to $400 per vehicle per day depending on utilization assumptions, and every one of those figures is a model, not a measurement. No one has a year of operating data on a privately owned Cybercab, because no one has a privately owned Cybercab.

A company presenting projections as expected income — especially compounding ones that turn one car into a fleet in three years — is selling a spreadsheet. A company showing you the inputs, letting you change them, and labeling the output as an estimate is showing its work.

DockDuty: the calculator exposes every assumption and lets you set them yourself, and our honest-math post opens by saying the data to know doesn’t exist yet. We are not a licensed financial adviser and none of this is investment advice.

The twenty-minute version

If you only do four things: look up the entity in the state registry, read the refund window in hours, confirm in writing that the title stays in your name, and ask what happens to your car if the company fails. Those four separate almost everything.

Vetting a robotaxi depot company: FAQ

How do I know if a robotaxi depot company is legitimate?
Verify rather than trust: find the legal entity in the state business registry, confirm named founders with checkable histories, read the exact refund window, get the title arrangement in writing, and ask what happens to your vehicle if the company fails.

What claims should be a red flag?
Anything ahead of reality. Tesla has not opened public Cybercab ordering or published private-owner network terms as of August 2026, so claims of shipping Cybercabs, operating private fleets, or allocating vehicles describe something that doesn’t exist.

Should the deposit be refundable?
Until the service actually begins, yes. Watch for deposits refundable only for 48 hours less a processing fee. Ours stays refundable until your cab is onboarded.

Do I keep the title?
At DockDuty, yes — personally, in your own name, never transferred. Pooled or SPV structures are a different product; know which one you’re being sold.

What if the depot company goes under?
Title settles ownership, not possession. Demand a wind-down provision, lien waiver, short pickup notice, and no minimum term — and treat unsegregated deposits as unsecured claims.