Zoox, Amazon's self-driving car unit, plans to expand its autonomous vehicle testing to Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, marking its first tests outside the western U.S. The company's expansion comes as the robotaxi space gets more competitive, with GM's Cruise and Alphabet's Waymo also making moves.
Zoox's testing protocol involves pre-planned challenging routes and random testing within geofenced areas, taking a slow and steady approach to testing and scaling its autonomous vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating around 500 Zoox vehicles equipped with automated driving systems after reports of unexpected braking and crashes, including a rear-end collision caused by sudden braking.
This has raised concerns among some Austin residents and city officials about self-driving car companies using Austin for trials, citing previous issues with companies like Cruise causing traffic jams.
General Motors' Cruise and Alphabet's Waymo are also under investigation by the NHTSA for the performance of autonomous vehicles.
Cruise announced on Monday that it has resumed operations in Dallas, Texas, with a small fleet of human drivers after pausing operations due to an incident in San Francisco involving one of its robotaxis in October last year.
Zoox has not disclosed the number of test vehicles assigned to each city or a timeline for removing safety drivers and starting commercial operations.
Sources: Reuters, Economic Times, El Economista, cnBeta, Yahoo Movies, Newsbytes, CBS Austin, WION, CNFOL, Techmeme, Hoodline, Investing, Daily Mail, KVUE, MarketScreener, ITechPost.
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.
