Industry reference

Robotaxi, Cybercab & Autonomous Fleet Glossary

The vocabulary of the robotaxi depot industry, defined in one place and organised so the terms make sense next to each other. 54 terms, each with a definition you can quote on its own, the terms it is usually confused with, and a link to the page that explains it in full. Where a term describes something no manufacturer has settled yet, the entry says so.

Last updated September 11, 2026 · Machine-readable JSON · How these definitions are written

How the terms relate

Three trees, one industry. The operations tree is where the work happens and who does it. The owner tree is the side of the market that does not exist yet: privately owned vehicles on a driverless network. The infrastructure tree is the land, power and buildings both of the others depend on. Every node links to its entry.

Operations side

Autonomous fleet operations
1. Robotaxi operations
  1. Robotaxi depot
    1. Robotaxi depot operator

Owner side

Privately owned robotaxi
1. Cybercab owner / fleet owner
  1. Owner services
    1. Fleet management
      1. Third-party depot operations
        
        Depot-as-a-service
        
        Revenue-share depot
        
        Flat-fee operator
        
        Remote ownership

Infrastructure side

Mobility hub

One company can sit on several branches. A manufacturer that runs depots for its own fleet is a network and a depot operator. A charging company that leases stalls inside someone else's depot is infrastructure only. The roles table below keeps them apart.

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Who does what

Most confusion in this category comes from collapsing eight roles into one. Kept apart they are plain. One company may perform several of them; the rows describe the jobs, not the companies. The depot operator page has the full table, with the companies doing each job in 2026.

Cybercab owner: holds title to one vehicle, carries its risk, chooses a network, keeps the income.
Fleet owner: the same for several vehicles, often through an LLC.
Robotaxi network: takes and prices rides, dispatches vehicles, sets the rules for joining.
Depot operator: land, power, equipment and staff; everything physical between rides, plus reporting.
Fleet manager: monitors vehicle state and coordinates the work; may or may not run a facility.
Charging operator: supplies energy at its own hubs or inside a depot, and nothing else on the list.
Mobility hub: the physical site that supports vehicle operations, from a depot’s back-of-house to a multi-modal stop.
Maintenance provider: repairs and services the vehicle; usually a manufacturer or third-party service center, not the depot.

The category

Major conceptAutonomous fleet operations

Autonomous fleet operations is the set of recurring tasks that keep a fleet of driverless vehicles in revenue service: energy, cleaning, inspection, staging, dispatch coordination, maintenance coordination, incident response and reporting. In a human-driven fleet most of this work is absorbed by drivers between shifts; in an autonomous fleet it has to be assigned to a depot, a fleet manager or the owner.

Also called Robotaxi fleet operations · AV fleet operations · Autonomous fleet management

The phrase is the umbrella for everything on this page. Below it sit the facility where the work happens (a robotaxi depot), the company that does the work (a robotaxi depot operator), the functions themselves (the Depot operations section), and the commercial models for buying the work rather than doing it.

What is known. Every operator that has published details of its operations runs from dedicated facilities, and they describe the same list of functions: Waymo (itself and through partners), Zoox, and Tesla for its own fleet. What is not settled. Whether a privately owned vehicle will be allowed to join a manufacturer's network at all, and on what terms, has not been published by any manufacturer as of September 2026, so the owner-side half of this vocabulary describes a planned market rather than an operating one.

Facilities

Major conceptMobility hub

In transit planning, a mobility hub is a location where several modes of transport connect. In the robotaxi industry the phrase is increasingly used for a facility that supports autonomous fleet operations, including charging, staging and servicing, sometimes with rider pickup on site. The two meanings overlap but are not the same.

Also called Robotaxi mobility hub · Fleet hub

Why it is on this list. On September 3, 2026, Tesla opened a fleet interest form at tesla.com/robotaxi/interest whose options included "mobility hubs and infrastructure". The form does not define the phrase, does not describe a program and does not state terms. It is the first public signal that Tesla is asking about infrastructure interest beyond its own fleet; the form does not say who would supply it. It is also why an owner searching for the term in 2026 may be looking for something quite different from a transit interchange.

How this site uses it. A depot is a mobility hub's back-of-house. When a facility also handles rider pickup, curb management or multi-modal connections it is doing more than a depot does. DockDuty describes what it is building as a depot, not a mobility hub, because rider-facing functions are not part of the plan.

Major conceptRobotaxi depot

A robotaxi depot is a facility where autonomous ride-hailing vehicles are parked, charged, cleaned, inspected and staged between rides. It replaces the between-shift work a human driver used to do at home, and it is where a driverless fleet returns when it is not carrying passengers.

Also called AV depot · Autonomous vehicle depot · Robotaxi hub · Autonomous fleet facility

Also written AV depot, autonomous vehicle depot and, in press coverage, robotaxi hub. The terms are interchangeable; the canonical explanation on this site is the guide linked below, which covers the category across every fleet rather than one manufacturer. A Cybercab depot is the same facility type applied to Tesla's purpose-built two-seat vehicle, and has its own page because the vehicle changes the power design, the stall geometry and how a car is moved by hand.

Scale in 2026. Public examples run from a 50,000-square-foot Uber site in Houston to a 190,000-square-foot Zoox facility in Las Vegas; the large ones are wired for multi-megawatt utility service. Every one of those serves a fleet the network owns or contracts. A depot that takes in vehicles owned by individuals is a planned model, not an operating one, as of September 2026.

Operational termFleet charging infrastructure

Fleet charging infrastructure is the electrical service, transformers, conduit and chargers a depot needs to keep a fleet at target state of charge. The binding constraint is almost always the utility service rather than the chargers: a fast-charging bank for a large fleet needs a service upgrade, and transformer lead times reported in 2026 run twelve to eighteen months.

Also called Fleet charging · Depot charging capacity

Operational termFleet parking

Fleet parking for autonomous vehicles is secured, assigned space where a driverless vehicle can sit between rides: a fenced perimeter, controlled gate, cameras with retained footage and, at a depot, one assigned stall per vehicle. It differs from ordinary parking because the vehicle has to be findable, retrievable and insured while unattended.

Also called Robotaxi parking · Secured fleet parking

Synonym / pointerCybercab depot

A Cybercab depot is a robotaxi depot built for Tesla Cybercabs specifically: the parking, charging, cleaning, staging and between-ride operations the vehicle needs, designed around a car that has no steering wheel and, per Tesla's stated design, no charge port.

Also called Tesla Cybercab depot

The full definition, the nine jobs a depot does and the twelve most-asked questions live on the dedicated page, which is the canonical reference for this term on this site.

Synonym / pointerFleet operations facility

A fleet operations facility is the general term for a site that services a commercial vehicle fleet. In autonomous ride-hailing the specific term is depot; "operations facility" is used mostly in zoning documents, leases and press releases.

Also called Operations center · Fleet ops facility

Roles and actors

Major conceptRobotaxi depot operator

A robotaxi depot operator is a company that runs the physical ground operations for an autonomous ride-hailing fleet at a fixed facility: parking, charging, cleaning, inspection, staging, maintenance coordination and incident response. The operator may be the vehicle's manufacturer or network (first-party) or an independent company working under contract (third-party).

Also called Cybercab depot operator · Depot operator · AV depot operator

The distinction that matters is between the company that touches the car and the company that only sees it. A depot operator signs a lease, buys chargers and employs people; fleet-management software schedules and reports. One company can do both.

Who does it today. Tesla builds and runs depots for the fleet it owns; Waymo contracts depot and fleet operations to partners such as Moove, Avis Budget Group and Lyft's Flexdrive in different cities; Zoox runs its own; Uber has leased a Houston depot for its 2027 launch; Hertz's Oro Mobility affiliate has partnered with Uber to charge, clean, maintain and staff depots for Uber's robotaxis, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of them serve fleets the network or platform owns. DockDuty is developing a third-party depot operator model intended for privately owned vehicles, with a first depot targeted for Orlando in Q4 2026 and none operating yet.

Operational termCharging operator

A charging operator builds and runs the electrical infrastructure a fleet charges on, either at its own hubs or inside another company's depot. Some charging operators serve robotaxi fleets without parking, cleaning or inspecting the vehicles; the depot operator does that part.

Also called Fleet charging provider · Charging network operator

Example: Voltera and Revel, which announced a merger in May 2026, together describe more than 1,000 fast-charging stalls operating or in development across 11 US metros for fleets, ride-hail drivers and robotaxis. That is charging infrastructure, not depot operations, and a fleet still needs the rest of the list.

Operational termFirst-party depot

A first-party depot is one built and operated by the company that owns or dispatches the fleet, such as a manufacturer running depots for its own robotaxis. It is the counterpart of a third-party depot, which is run by an independent company under contract.

Also called Manufacturer-operated depot · Network-operated depot

Operational termFleet manager (robotaxi)

A robotaxi fleet manager monitors a fleet's vehicles and coordinates the work on them: which cars are charged, clean, due for service or flagged, and when each returns to service. The role can be a person on a depot floor, a company contracted by a network, or software that only reports. A fleet manager who does not operate a facility still depends on a depot for the physical work.

Also called Autonomous fleet manager · Fleet operations manager

Operational termRobotaxi network

A robotaxi network is the platform that takes ride requests, prices them and dispatches vehicles to riders. The network may own its fleet, contract fleets from partners, or, in a model no manufacturer has yet opened, admit vehicles owned by private individuals. The network dispatches; a depot makes sure the car is ready to be dispatched.

Also called Ride-hailing network · Autonomous ride-hailing platform

Operational termThird-party depot

A third-party depot is a robotaxi depot run by an independent company that is neither the vehicle's manufacturer or network nor its owner. "Third-party" describes who holds the keys, not a different kind of building; it is the only version of a depot an individual owner can buy rather than build.

Also called Third-party Cybercab depot · Independent depot operator · Third-party robotaxi management

Synonym / pointerMaintenance provider

A maintenance provider repairs and services fleet vehicles: tires, brakes, sensors, bodywork and warranty work. A depot usually coordinates maintenance rather than performing heavy work on site, so the depot and the service center are typically two different parties.

Also called Service center · Fleet maintenance partner

Synonym / pointerRobotaxi depot company

A robotaxi depot company is a business whose product is depot operations for driverless vehicles. The phrase is a commercial synonym for robotaxi depot operator and is used when the question is which company to contract rather than what the role is.

Depot operations

Operational termCharging window

A charging window is the period in which a vehicle is scheduled to charge, chosen so that charging does not overlap the hours the vehicle earns most and, where tariffs vary, so that it lands on cheaper power. Managing charging windows across a fleet is a depot function; a single owner with a home charger rarely has to think about it.

Also called Charge window

Ownership

Major conceptPrivately owned robotaxi

A privately owned robotaxi is an autonomous ride-hailing vehicle whose title is held by an individual or a business other than the manufacturer or the network that dispatches it. As of September 2026 no manufacturer has published terms under which a privately owned vehicle can join a driverless ride-hailing network, so the category is anticipated rather than operating.

Also called Privately owned Cybercab · Customer-owned robotaxi · Owner-supplied vehicle

What is known. Tesla has said since 2016 that owners would be able to add their cars to a Tesla ride-hailing network, and its September 3, 2026 fleet interest form asked about fleet vehicle purchasing. What is not. Eligibility, the revenue split, insurance requirements, whether the owner's location matters, and timing. Every projection about owner economics on this site assumes a program that has not launched.

The owner-side vocabulary follows from this term: a fleet owner holds several such vehicles; owner services are what a third party does for them; and remote ownership is the case where the owner and the vehicle are in different places.

Operational termFleet owner (robotaxi)

A robotaxi fleet owner holds title to more than one autonomous ride-hailing vehicle, whether as an individual, an LLC or an operating company, and either runs the operations or contracts them out. A single-vehicle owner is usually called a Cybercab owner or robotaxi owner; the economics of both change around the second or third car, which is where self-operation stops scaling.

Also called Cybercab fleet owner · Robotaxi fleet owner · Autonomous vehicle fleet owner

Operational termOwner services (robotaxi)

Robotaxi owner services are the operational tasks a third party performs for the owner of an autonomous vehicle: parking, charging, cleaning, readiness, staging, dispatch coordination, incident response, maintenance coordination and reporting. The phrase describes the service from the owner's side; "fleet management" describes the same work from the operator's.

Also called Cybercab owner services · Robotaxi owner services

Operational termRemote ownership

Remote ownership is holding title to a robotaxi that operates in a different city, state or country from the owner, with a depot operator handling the physical work and a dashboard providing visibility. A third-party depot removes the operational reason an owner has to live near the vehicle; it cannot remove network rules that have not been written yet.

Also called Remote fleet ownership · Own from anywhere · Out-of-state ownership

Commercial models and terms

Major conceptDepot-as-a-service

Depot-as-a-service is a commercial model in which a vehicle owner rents depot capacity and operations per vehicle, typically as a monthly fee per stall plus a share of ride revenue, instead of leasing land, installing chargers and hiring staff. The owner keeps the vehicle and its title; the operator supplies the site, the power and the people.

Also called DaaS (depot) · Depot capacity as a service

Why the model exists. Depot capacity built for ride-hailing platforms is funded and sized for fleets of hundreds; nobody in that tier sells one stall. Building a depot yourself rarely pencils for a single owner or a small fleet once land, a transformer and a payroll are counted. Depot-as-a-service is the retail layer between those two facts.

Example, labelled. DockDuty's published model is a monthly retainer per stall plus a per-ride service fee, both stepping down with fleet size, with charging electricity included in the retainer and month-to-month exit. No DockDuty depot is operating as of September 2026; the rates are published and the reservation is a refundable deposit, not a running service.

Operational termFlat-fee operator

A flat-fee operator manages a vehicle for a fixed monthly charge, often with per-mile fees on top, regardless of what the vehicle earns. The owner carries the whole of a lean month; the operator's income does not move with utilization.

Also called Fixed-fee fleet manager

Operational termRetainer (per stall)

A per-stall retainer is the fixed monthly charge for a vehicle's place at a depot, covering the stall, on-site charging and the recurring operational work. In a revenue-share model it sits alongside a per-ride service fee; what it does and does not include should be written into the agreement rather than the marketing.

Also called Monthly retainer · Stall fee

Operational termRevenue-share depot

A revenue-share depot charges a small fixed retainer plus a percentage of what each vehicle earns, so the operator's income rises and falls with the owner's. It is one of four ways a privately owned robotaxi can be run, alongside self-operation, a flat-fee operator and an SPV or equity structure.

Also called Revenue-share model

Vehicles and networks

Operational termInductive charging

Inductive charging transfers energy to a vehicle through a pad it parks over rather than a cable. Tesla has stated the production Cybercab is designed to charge this way with no charge port; final production hardware and pad specifications are not public, and validation vehicles have been photographed with a temporary NACS port. A depot planned for it is planned around electrical capacity rather than one connector.

Also called Wireless charging · Pad charging

Operational termService area (robotaxi)

A robotaxi service area is the mapped zone inside which a network will accept and complete rides driverlessly. It is set by the operator and, in some states, by permit; a depot outside the zone costs empty miles every time a car repositions into it.

Also called Geofence · Operating zone

Operational termTesla Network

The Tesla Network is the name Tesla used from 2016 for a planned ride-hailing network to which owners could add their own vehicles. In 2025 and 2026 Tesla launched a Robotaxi service using vehicles it owns; the owner-participation program has been described repeatedly but its terms have not been published as of September 2026.

Also called Tesla Robotaxi network · Add your car to the fleet

Operational termUnsupervised FSD

Unsupervised FSD is Tesla's term for its Full Self-Driving software operating with no human in the driver's seat, as opposed to supervised FSD, which requires an attentive driver. It is the vehicle-side capability a robotaxi depends on and is live only in the cities where Tesla operates its own driverless service.

Also called Driverless FSD · FSD Unsupervised

Law and insurance

Operational termGarage-keeper coverage

Garage-keeper coverage is the insurance a facility carries for damage to customers' vehicles while in its care, custody and control. For a depot it is the operator's policy, separate from the owner's commercial policy on the vehicle itself, and whether it is bound is a question to ask an operator directly rather than assume.

Also called Garagekeepers insurance · Bailee coverage

Operational termState preemption (AV law)

State preemption in autonomous-vehicle law means the state sets the rules for driverless operation and bars cities from adding their own. Florida's § 316.85 and Texas's SB 2205 are the worked examples. Preemption governs the vehicle on the road; it does not reach zoning, so a city can still say no to the lot.

Also called AV preemption · Statewide AV framework

Synonym / pointerDangerous instrumentality doctrine

The dangerous instrumentality doctrine is a Florida rule under which a vehicle's owner can be held liable for harm caused by its operation, even when someone else is operating it. How courts will apply it to a driverless vehicle is untested, which is one reason owners look at holding a robotaxi in an LLC.

Also called Florida vehicle owner liability

Synonym / pointerTNC contingent coverage

TNC contingent coverage is liability insurance that responds when a vehicle is available to a transportation network company but the network's own policy does not apply. How it maps onto a driverless vehicle owned by a private party is unsettled, because no such vehicle is on a network yet.

Also called Rideshare contingent liability

DockDuty's role in this vocabulary

Stated plainly · September 2026

DockDuty is developing third-party depot operations for privately owned autonomous vehicles. In the hierarchy above it sits on the operations tree as a depot operator and on the owner tree as third-party depot operations sold as depot-as-a-service. Its planned role covers:

parking, in an assigned stall on a fenced site
charging on site, with electricity included in the retainer
cleaning and readiness between rides
fleet monitoring and an owner dashboard
dispatch coordination with whichever network the owner enrolls in
24-hour incident response and maintenance coordination
owner reporting: trips, charging sessions, statements

DockDuty is an independent company, not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or partnered with Tesla, Inc. No DockDuty depot is operating; the first is targeted for Orlando, Florida in Q4 2026 and no lease has been executed. Whether and how a privately owned vehicle can join a manufacturer's network depends on terms that manufacturer has not published, and every owner-side term on this page is written with that dependency in mind. The commercial version of this paragraph is on the depot company page; the honest status list is on the About page.

How these definitions are written

Definitions are written and reviewed by DockDuty's two founders under the site's editorial policy, which separates confirmed fact, reported-but-unconfirmed, DockDuty target and projection. Three rules apply to every entry:

The first sentence is neutral. It defines the term without naming a company, so it can be quoted without carrying an advertisement.
DockDuty examples are labelled. Where DockDuty is the example, the entry says so, and the claim is limited to what is published on the pricing page and the agreement.
Unsettled things are called unsettled. If a term depends on something a manufacturer has not announced, the entry says "planned", "expected" or "not published" rather than rounding it up.

The definitions and the structured data on this page are generated from one source file, so nothing in the markup says something the page does not show. Corrections: support@dockduty.com.

Sources used across these entries

Tesla, fleet interest form, opened September 3, 2026 (tesla.com/robotaxi/interest), for the phrase "mobility hubs and infrastructure".
Florida Legislature, Fla. Stat. § 316.85, for state preemption of local autonomous-vehicle rules.
Austin American-Statesman, Tesla's Austin robotaxi charging-and-carwash site filing, August 2026.
CNBC, Zoox's Las Vegas launch and its 190,000-square-foot facility, September 10, 2025.
Axios, Uber's 50,000-square-foot Houston depot lease, June 17, 2026.
Lyft, Flexdrive's Nashville facility for Waymo vehicles, 2026.
TechCrunch, Waymo's fleet-operations contract with Moove, December 5, 2024, and with Avis Budget Group in Dallas, July 28, 2025.
Hertz, Oro Mobility announcement with Uber, 2026.
Electrek, Voltera and Revel merger for fleet and robotaxi charging, May 28, 2026.
Axios, robotaxi infrastructure as an asset class, and multi-megawatt depot sites, July 22, 2026.
DockDuty's own facts: the rate card, the owner agreement rendered at checkout, and what is and is not live.

Now you have the words. Here is the thing they describe.

The owner dashboard is public: no login, no card, sample data, labelled as such. If you want a stall, the deposit is refundable until your vehicle is onboarded.

Open the live demo Reserve a stall — $450, refundable

No depot is operating yet. Orlando is targeted for Q4 2026 and that is a target, not a date.