Who cleans a robotaxi between rides?
Today a robotaxi is cleaned by whoever runs the fleet, either the robotaxi company itself or a depot partner it pays to do the work. Waymo’s cars are cleaned by Waymo and by contractors such as Transdev in San Francisco, by Uber in Austin and Atlanta, and, by agreement, by Avis Budget Group in Dallas and Lyft’s Flexdrive in Nashville. Tesla says it owns and operates every Robotaxi itself. For a privately owned Cybercab, no public cleaning program exists yet, because Tesla has not published terms for owners to put their cars on its network. DockDuty plans to clean owners’ cars at its depots once they open; DockDuty is pre-launch, and no depot is operating.
Who cleans robotaxis today
Every driverless ride service running in the United States cleans its cars at a depot, a lot where the fleet parks, charges and gets checked between shifts. What differs is whose staff do the work. Here is what each operator or partner has said in public, with the date.
| Fleet | Who does the cleaning | What the source says |
|---|---|---|
| Waymo, San Francisco | Waymo, with contracted staff | “We regularly clean our cars and do pre- and post-ride inspections via the interior cameras,” a Waymo spokesperson told the San Francisco Standard (October 6, 2023). At its largest depot, “employees contracted by Transdev and other third-party companies” do tasks “from plugging chargers into the cars to cleaning their interiors,” per Business Insider (February 17, 2026). |
| Waymo on Uber, Austin and Atlanta | Uber | “Uber will provide fleet management services including vehicle cleaning, repair, and other general depot operations,” per UberUber’s release (September 2024)rsquo;s release (September 13, 2024). |
| Waymo, Dallas | Avis Budget Group | Avis “will provide end-to-end fleet management services, including infrastructure, vehicle readiness, maintenance, and general depot operations,” per Waymo’s statement quoted by CleanTechnica (July 30, 2025). Cleaning is not named on its own in that statement; “vehicle readiness” is the closest term. |
| Waymo, Nashville | Lyft, through its subsidiary Flexdrive | Lyft will handle “fleet services, such as vehicle readiness and maintenance, infrastructure, and depot operations,” per TechCrunch (September 17, 2025). Flexdrive’s 80,000 sq ft depot is “purpose-built to service, charge and maintain” Waymo’s cars, with secondary sites that “will allow for fast cleaning and charging,” per Lyft (April 15, 2026). |
| Uber, Lucid and Nuro, Bay Area (planned) | Oro, Hertz’s fleet-services business | Oro will provide “day-to-day vehicle asset management, including charging, maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and depot staffing,” per Hertz (April 30, 2026). The service is described as expected to launch later in 2026. |
| Tesla Robotaxi | Tesla | “All Robotaxi vehicles are owned and operated by Tesla at this time,” and Robotaxi Mission Control “handles any charging and maintenance.” The same document describes a Cybercab driving itself when “proceeding to a charging or cleaning station.” Source: Tesla’s Cybercab First Responder Interaction Plan (checked October 26, 2026). |
Tesla is still working this out for its own cars. On Tesla’s October 21, 2026 earnings call, chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja listed what Tesla is learning as Cybercabs join its fleet: “managing a fleet, pickup and drop off, cleaning, all those things,” per The Motley Fool’s transcript (October 22, 2026). For the wider list of who runs depots and where, see our robotaxi depot directory.
What a clean between rides looks like
No operator publishes a step-by-step cleaning checklist or a schedule. What is public comes in three pieces.
Checks through the interior camera
Waymo says it inspects cars before and after rides through the interior cameras, and the San Francisco Standard reported that those checks decide whether an extra, unplanned cleaning is needed (October 6, 2023). In plain terms: the car is not necessarily scrubbed after every ride, but someone looks, and a mess sends it in.
Lost items
With no driver, nobody notices a phone left on the seat until the next rider or the depot does. Waymo’s help page says a found item goes to the Waymo depot, “Items will only be stored for 7 days,” and “We do not save bottles, smoking-related items, umbrellas, or food” (Waymo Help, checked October 26, 2026). So clearing out what riders leave behind is part of the depot’s job.
Cameras and sensors
A driverless car can’t ask the driver to wipe a dirty camera, so the cars clean some of their own lenses while driving. Not a Tesla App reported that every exterior camera on the Cybercab now has a washer jet, based on sightings and photos rather than a Tesla statement (January 26, 2026). Washer jets don’t remove everything, which is why a lens check belongs in a depot visit too.
What a between-rides reset covers
The table below is DockDuty’s plan for its own depots, not a published industry standard. It matches what our pricing page lists under the retainer: cleaning and readiness between rides, covering the interior, exterior, lost property and damage checks.
| Step | Between rides (DockDuty plan) |
|---|---|
| Interior | Trash out, spills wiped, seats and touch surfaces wiped down |
| Lost property | Checked every visit and logged for the owner |
| Cameras and sensors | Lenses checked and cleaned by hand if dirty |
| Exterior | Walk-around for new damage |
| Readiness | Charge state and software state checked before the car goes back out; anything flagged goes to maintenance coordination |
On the homepage this is the “Reset” step of Park. Charge. Reset. Repeat.: interior wash between rides, sensor cleaning, and software updates checked before the car goes back on the network.
What does it cost to clean a robotaxi?
Unknown. No robotaxi operator or depot partner publishes what a single clean costs, and none of the releases above includes a price. We have not found a per-clean price for a privately owned Cybercab anywhere, and we are not going to guess one.
DockDuty does not plan to charge per clean either. Under our published pricing, cleaning sits inside the monthly retainer (details below), so there is no separate cleaning invoice. Our longer post on robotaxi maintenance costs covers the cost lines that are public.
What about a privately owned Cybercab?
Nothing is in place yet, for anyone. Tesla has not published terms for owners to put their own cars on its Robotaxi network. On the October 21 call, Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy said, “We suspect somewhere around Q2 next year is when we can turn on some of the first customer vehicles to be part of the Robotaxi fleet” (transcript, October 22, 2026). That is a spoken estimate, not a written date. Tesla has said nothing public about who would clean an owner’s car.
That leaves three realistic options once owner cars can earn: clean it yourself between shifts, hope Tesla offers it, or use an independent depot. Cleaning it yourself works only if you live near the car and can get to it whenever it needs a reset. An independent depot is what DockDuty is building; we explain the model in what a third-party Cybercab depot is and what an AV depot does, and the full operation is on the Cybercab depot page.
What DockDuty’s retainer is planned to include
DockDuty charges a monthly retainer per stall plus a per-ride service fee; the current numbers are on the pricing page. Per that page, the retainer is planned to cover:
- An assigned stall at a depot with controlled access.
- Charging, with the electricity included and no markup on energy.
- Cleaning and readiness between rides: interior, exterior, lost property, damage checks.
- Staging the car where demand is expected.
- Dispatch coordination and 24-hour incident response.
- Maintenance coordination (parts and labour are billed to the owner).
- An owner dashboard. You can see a demo of the owner dashboard with sample data.
None of this is running yet. It starts when a depot opens and your vehicle is onboarded there.
DockDuty status
Orlando is our lead market, with its depot targeted for Q4 2026. We’re planning locations in several more metros at the same time. None has a site, lease or date yet. No DockDuty depot is operating and no customer vehicle is earning. DockDuty is an independent depot and dispatch platform. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or partnered with Tesla, Inc.; “Tesla” and “Cybercab” are trademarks of Tesla, Inc., used here for descriptive reference only.
Robotaxi cleaning: FAQ
Who cleans a robotaxi between rides?
The company running the fleet or a depot partner it pays. Waymo uses its own staff and contractors such as Transdev in San Francisco, Uber in Austin and Atlanta, and, by agreement, Avis Budget Group in Dallas and Lyft’s Flexdrive in Nashville. Tesla says it owns and operates every Robotaxi itself.
Does a robotaxi get cleaned after every ride?
Not necessarily, and no operator publishes a schedule. Waymo says it cleans its cars regularly and checks them before and after rides through the interior cameras, and those checks decide whether an extra cleaning is needed.
Who will clean a privately owned Cybercab?
No public program exists yet. Tesla has not published terms for owners to put their cars on its network, and has said nothing about who would clean them. DockDuty plans to clean owners’ cars at its depots once they open; DockDuty is pre-launch and no depot is operating.
How much does it cost to clean a robotaxi?
Unknown. No operator or depot partner publishes a per-clean price, and we have not found one for a privately owned Cybercab. At DockDuty, cleaning is planned to be included in the monthly retainer rather than billed per clean.
What happens to items left in a robotaxi?
At Waymo, a found item goes to the depot and is stored for 7 days, and bottles, smoking-related items, umbrellas and food are not saved. DockDuty plans to check for lost property on every depot visit and log it for the owner.
Sources.
- San Francisco Standard, October 6, 2023, on Waymo’s cleaning and interior-camera inspections.
- Business Insider via AOL, February 17, 2026, on contractors cleaning interiors at Waymo’s largest depot.
- Uber, September 13, 2024, Uber and Waymo in Austin and Atlanta.
- CleanTechnica, July 30, 2025, on Avis Budget Group and Waymo in Dallas.
- TechCrunch, September 17, 2025, on Lyft and Waymo in Nashville.
- Lyft, April 15, 2026, on the Flexdrive Nashville depot.
- Hertz, April 30, 2026, on Oro and Uber.
- Tesla, Cybercab First Responder Interaction Plan, checked October 26, 2026.
- The Motley Fool, Tesla Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, October 22, 2026.
- Waymo Help, Lost and found, checked October 26, 2026.
- Not a Tesla App, January 26, 2026, on camera washers.