[Video] Waymo Opens New Depot Near LAX

As Waymo looks to expand their driverless ride hailing service into an ever growing service area in Los Angeles, more charging and service depots are key to enable low wait times and clean rides. This new location is no exception, with excellent positioning just minutes away from both the LAX Airport and SoFi Stadium.

We already know of a few of these sites in Sawtelle and Culver City. Some are smaller with just a few chargers, and others larger with a complete staff maintining the vehicles. But what we haven't seen before is an outsourced version of this, which is exactly what Waymo appear to have done here.

This depot is operated by a company named Terawatt, who, at the time of writing, offer EV fleet charging and maintenance services across California, Arizona, and New Mexico. This new partnership seems to be a first for Waymo, with other depot locations appearing to be operated in-house.

This location is also outside of the normal LA service area for Waymo, with the depot being far outside of the area shown in the app. After following one of the vehicles after it left the depot, we found it to be taking a random route around the Inglewood area, and not return to the usual service area as we anticipated. Is this a sign of an imminent service area expansion? Or a sign of LAX service coming sooner than we think? Let's hope so! Waymo has a history of making anyone in "the know" sign a watertight NDA - so we'll just have to wait and see.

Watch our overview video below for footage of the new depot and commentary detailing operations.

You can also watch the complete compilation of all footage collected during our visit, without any commentary or edits here.