Texas EV Charging for Robotaxis and Electric Trucks

Overview

Fleet Charging in Texas Is Moving From Public Plugs to Private Depots

Tesla runs its Robotaxi service in Austin with Model Y vehicles and, since early September 2026, the two-seat Cybercab built at Giga Texas. Waymo runs in Austin through the Uber app and opened driverless service in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio on February 24, 2026. Every one of those vehicles is battery electric and charges at a fleet lot or a public DC (direct current) fast charger.

Heavy trucks follow a different pattern. Aurora, the leading driverless freight operator in Texas, runs diesel International, PACCAR and Volvo tractors on lanes such as Dallas to Houston and Fort Worth to El Paso, so autonomous freight in Texas adds no charging load today. The electric truck load comes from the Tesla Semi, which entered volume production in Sparks, Nevada, on September 24, 2026, and from battery-electric carriers such as Nevoya on Interstate 45.

Both classes of fleet draw power in blocks of one to 15 megawatts (MW) per site, the scale of a factory feeder rather than a parking garage. See Texas Robotaxi Deployments and Texas Autonomous Freight Deployments for the operators.

Robotaxi Charging

Austin Robotaxis Charge by Hand Today and Plan for Wireless Pads

Tesla's two Austin filings are the first purpose-built robotaxi charging lots in Texas, and neither is confirmed by Tesla as a Cybercab hub.

A video posted on October 3, 2026, showed one Tesla employee at a public Austin Supercharger plugging in 10 driverless vehicles, one Cybercab and nine Model Ys, as each parked itself. The Cybercab backs into the stall because its NACS (North American Charging Standard) port sits behind a drop-down door in the rear bumper. It has no onboard AC (alternating current) charger, so it cannot use a wall connector and depends on DC fast chargers or wireless pads.

Tesla's wireless system uses Bluetooth to find the ground pad and UWB (ultra-wideband) radio to align the car before power flows; the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) granted Tesla a UWB waiver on February 18, 2026, and Tesla claims efficiency above 90%. Tesla demonstrated Cybercab wireless charging at 25 kilowatts (kW) in 2024.

The St. Elmo Road permit, titled ST ELMO PARKING AND CHARGING and describing a robocar carwash and charging lot, covers 82,107 square feet across from Tesla's St. Elmo service center. Phase one has 48 V4 Supercharger stalls fed by 12 cabinets; phase two adds two V4 cabinets for 80 wireless chargers. The Ridgepoint Drive filing, in a project folder named 2323 Ridgepoint Dr - Robotaxi, places 24 V4 posts on three cabinets behind Tesla's northeast Austin delivery center, with no wireless pads.

Waymo's Austin fleet is operated by Avomo, an Uber-backed company that handles charging, cleaning and maintenance. In Dallas, Waymo runs two downtown depots, a temporary one on portable chargers and a permanent one with fixed chargers and maintenance bays; Avis Budget Group is set to take over Dallas fleet operations. Waymo ran its own depots in Houston and San Antonio at launch.

Heavy Trucks

Texas Leads the Tesla Megacharger Map and Gets the First Greenlane Lanes Outside California

The Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is the heavy-vehicle connector standard published by SAE International as J3271 in March 2025, rated to 3,000 amps, 1,250 volts and 3.75 MW; the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) connector standard, IEC 63379, followed in February 2026. Tesla said in 2025 that its public Megacharger network would use MCS. Greenlane equips its lanes with both MCS and CCS (Combined Charging System), the connector on current electric trucks.

Tesla's V4 cabinet delivers 1.2 MW shared across up to eight posts, enough for one Semi at full rate or several cars at up to 500 kW. Tesla's Megacharger map lists 19 planned Texas sites, the most of any state. Pilot, the Knoxville-based travel center chain, opened its first Tesla Megacharger site in Ellabell, Georgia, on October 8, 2026, with six 1.2 MW stalls; its Flying J in Fort Stockton on I-10 was one of three sites nearly finished. At Giga Texas, Tesla expanded one older Megacharger to four units of up to 1.2 MW in July 2026.

Greenlane, which opened its flagship truck charging center in Colton, California, in April 2025, announced Dallas and Houston sites on I-45 in May 2026, its first step into the Texas Triangle of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. China operates at a larger scale: BYD reached 10,000 Flash Charging stations rated up to 1,500 kW per connector by August 28, 2026, and CATL ran about 300 Qiji heavy-truck battery swap stations at the end of 2025 with a 2026 target of 900.

Grid Load

A Robotaxi Depot Draws Several Megawatts, Well Below ERCOT's Large-Load Threshold

AustinIO estimate: the 48 St. Elmo stalls at about 250 kW each come to roughly 12 MW of nameplate charger capacity, and 80 wireless pads at about 25 kW each add about 2 MW, for roughly 14 MW at full build. Actual demand runs lower because V4 cabinets share power across posts; the Ridgepoint filing pairs three 1.2 MW cabinets (3.6 MW nameplate) with a 2,500 kVA (kilovolt-ampere) transformer, about 2.5 MW. A Pilot Megacharger site of four to eight 1.2 MW stalls is a 4.8 to 9.6 MW load.

Both Austin lots sit in the service area of Austin Energy, the city-owned utility, which sizes the transformer and feeder for each site. Austin Energy's commercial charging rebate pays up to $5,000 per DC fast charger, capped at 50% of cost and six stations per address per year, a program sized for workplace chargers rather than fleet depots.

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) applies its large-load interconnection rules under Senate Bill 6 to loads of 75 MW or more, including curtailment during firm load shed for loads connecting after December 31, 2025. A single robotaxi or truck charging depot falls well under that line and connects through the local utility like other commercial service; see ERCOT Large Load Interconnection.

Published reports on the Austin filings and the Texas Megacharger sites do not show on-site battery storage. Tesla builds its Megapack grid batteries at Brookshire, and Waymo signed a supply agreement with B2U Storage Solutions in June 2026 to reuse retired robotaxi batteries in grid storage in California and Texas.

Public Highway Charging

TxDOT Awarded NEVI Funds for 321 More Public Stations

TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) runs the federal NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) program in Texas for passenger vehicles. On October 15, 2026, TxDOT announced $226 million in Phase II awards for 321 stations, 264 in metropolitan planning areas and 57 in county seats. Phase I had 22 stations open, with five more expected by the end of 2026 and 30 planned for 2027; recent openings include Wichita Falls, Mount Pleasant, Van, Selma, Natalia, Encinal, Three Rivers and Kerrville. NEVI stations serve cars, not Class 8 trucks or robotaxi fleets.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• Texas Energy Nexus
• Texas Robotaxi Deployments
• Texas Autonomous Freight Deployments
• Tesla Giga Texas
• ERCOT Large Load Interconnection
• Tesla Megapack Brookshire