Today, construction is well underway on our largest autonomous vehicle facility to date. This fall, Flexdrive by Lyft, in partnership with Waymo, will open its long-term home at a 80,000-square-foot depot purpose-built to service, charge and maintain Waymo's autonomous vehicles at scale.

We've spent a decade building toward this. From our first fleet management facility in Atlanta in 2016, to 24 sites managing roughly 15,000 vehicles across North America today, we've developed fleet management expertise specific to rideshare that will support the fleet of Waymo vehicles in Nashville. Nashville isn't where we're learning how to do this. Nashville is where we're proving what we already know how to do — applied to the most sophisticated vehicles on the road.

Right now, crews are on-site rewiring this autonomous vehicle hub to be fully operational this fall. Think: EV charging infrastructure capable of supporting hundreds of autonomous vehicles. A purpose-built facility designed from the ground up for the AV era, in one of America’s most dynamic cities.

One of the core operational components of running an AV fleet at scale is simple: keep the AVs on the road to serve riders as much as possible. This facility, along with future EV charging sites that will later come online, will maximize utilization and maintain quick ETAs as the Nashville fleet grows. These secondary locations, positioned around the service area, will allow for fast cleaning and charging.

Nashville is one of the fastest-growing cities in America, with real transportation needs and a community that's ready to embrace what's next. And we intend to be part of this city for the long haul.

That starts with new job opportunities supporting Waymo’s technology. This year alone, we're standing up more than 70 new full-time positions in the Nashville area — technicians, operations managers, fleet coordinators, maintenance specialists – stable, skilled roles at the frontier of transportation technology. Of the full-time roles we’ve filled so far for this depot, 50% were current or former Lyft drivers.

The future of mobility in Nashville will consist of both Lyft drivers and autonomous vehicles. They each bring their unique capabilities to the table to unlock the highest utilization and availability, and drivers will continue to earn on the Lyft platform. At the same time, we’re excited to create new opportunities for the people who've spent years on the road, understand what a rider needs and what a well-maintained vehicle means, and bring something to AV operations that you simply can't train from scratch.

We're building this team the same way we've built Flexdrive's national workforce, where more than a third of our employees have been drivers, and helping train them for the new opportunity of managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles, because we believe the future of autonomous transportation should be built by the people who know this industry best.

Interested in joining the Flexdrive team in Nashville? Current and former drivers on Lyft receive priority for the next interview while roles are open. Apply here.

Operating autonomous vehicles isn't like managing a traditional fleet. AVs are highly complex systems with specific technical and training requirements administered by Waymo and Flexdrive.

Jonathan is our first newly hired employee for Nashville and has driven on the Lyft platform for more than 10 years. He understands the critical importance of vehicle maintenance, the art of delighting his riders, and the genuine pride that comes from a job well done. Jonathan brings a perspective to our operations that you simply can't teach in a classroom, and he embodies exactly the kind of team we're building here. He’s currently our Operations Lead, and brings his on-the-road experience to this hands-on role.

At Flexdrive, more than a third of our national workforce have been rideshare drivers. The people who've been on the front lines of transportation understand this industry from the inside out, and that real-world knowledge shapes how we operate every day. Together, we will shape the future of transportation with drivers and build a hybrid network.

We believe autonomous vehicles have the potential to change how cities move, expanding access for people who can't drive, reducing the burden of car ownership, and giving everyone a more reliable way to get around. That future doesn't build itself. It takes facilities like this one, teams like the one we're assembling in Nashville, and years of logistics and mobility expertise — and a long-term commitment to doing this right.

Nashville is where we will prove out what excellence in AV fleet management looks like at scale. We're just getting started.

Certain statements contained in this announcement are “forward-looking statements” about Lyft within the meaning of the securities laws, including statements about Lyft’s services and partnership with Waymo and related plans for Nashville (including fleet management facilities and the related construction, and future employment opportunities and related training) and other markets, autonomous vehicle strategy, expectations, technologies and benefits for riders and communities. Such statements, which are not of historical fact, involve estimates, assumptions, judgments and uncertainties. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those addressed in the forward-looking statements. Such factors are detailed in Lyft’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lyft does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events, except as required by applicable law.