Zoox Tests New Driverless Vehicle For The First Time on Public Roads
The fact that driverless cars are already on the road in the USA is nothing new. Waymo and Cruise operate several driverless robot taxi fleets that drive passengers around. I’ve reported on this before, as in the field report on my first 50 robotaxi rides with Cruise.
But now Zoox, which is part of Amazon, has tested the first vehicle on public roads designed specifically for robotaxi use. It’s more or less a cabin scooter, with passengers sitting across from each other like in a train compartment. The vehicle itself no longer has a driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals. There is no longer any provision for a human to manually take the controls.
Zoox has just received its license from the California DMV, and is now testing the vehicle for the first time on public roads in Foster City, a few miles south of San Francisco.
In the near future, Zoox plans to deploy this type of vehicle in its robotaxi service in Las Vegas first, followed by San Francisco.
In addition to Zoox, two other companies are already waiting in the wings to put similar vehicles designed specifically for autonomous driving on the roads. Cruise with the Cruise Origin and Waymo with the Zeekr vehicle.
This article was also published in German.
