Zoox, the autonomous driving technology company belonging to Amazon, is preparing to start testing its vehicles in Los Angeles this summer.
The city will be there Sixth testing location For the company based on the Bay region, which does not yet offer walks to the public.
Founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon in 2020, Zoox is one of the many efforts to introduce autonomous technology into the dominant current.
The director general of Tesla, Elon Musk, praises the potential of autonomous driving for years, and Waymo, property of Google Parent Company AlphabetAlready operating with driverless taxis in several cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix.
Zoox tests in Los Angeles will launch the basics of future sales service, said a company spokesperson. The company plans to welcome its first public riders in Las Vegas and San Francisco by the end of the year.
“We will continue to head towards autonomous technology and it will not always be this dark enigma which is only available in a few places,” said Karl Brauer, analyst at Iseecars.com. “Amazon wants to start having the technology in place to take advantage of it as the capacities take place.”
What will Zoox tests in Los Angeles look like?
Zoox will deploy a small number of Toyota Highlander test vehicles modernized in Los Angeles, all with human safety drivers, the company said. The SUVs will operate in a limited area of the city, although the company has not disclosed specific routes or geographic borders.
As it is standard when driving in a new city, the test fleet will end the manual mapping missions to identify difficult routes and specific road characteristics in Los Angeles. The city's sales department is still far away and will require regulatory approval.
“Even when technology is theoretically ready, regulations and approval processes will always be restricted,” said Brauer.
Zoox will not offer public journeys in his Test vehicles Or use them without a human driver, says the company's website. The company possibly plans to offer a carpooling service on demand by using autonomous vehicles specially designed without steering wheel and bidirectional capacity.
How do Zoox vehicles work?
Zoox test vehicles are modernized, but the company also develops a pill driverless vehicle It is supposed to be “closer to a living room on wheels than a traditional automobile interior,” said the Zoox website.
Robotaxy will be equipped with sensors and a type of laser radar called Lidar which allows them to navigate in dense urban areas, depending on the company. Unlike Waymo vehicles, taxis will not have a driver's seat or gas pedal.
Vehicles will be equipped with sliding doors and large windows, said the spokesperson, and the passengers will be faced.
Are vehicles sure?
For the file:
2:28 p.m. April 15, 2025An earlier version of this story wrongly indicated that robotaxis in the shape of a Zoox pill had not been tested on public roads. Robotaxy has been testing public roads since 2023 in San Francisco, Foster City and Las Vegas.
Zoox vehicles are built for prevent collisions And protect passengers in the event of an inevitable accident, says the company's website. Vehicles have more than 100 security innovations that do not exist in traditional cars, depending on the company.
Robotaxis in the form of a pill is not yet ready for the sales department, but they test on public roads in San Francisco, Foster City and Las Vegas since 2023.
The data suggest that automated driving could be safer than traditional driving. The Swiss insurer found that Waymo vehicles are safer than those with human drivers, but Zoox technology is not identical.
Teslas in complete autonomous mode and in driver -free Waymo vehicles were involved in accidents and collisions, generating doubts about autonomous technology safety. Waymo customers have reported various problems on social networks, including a Reddit user who has published a video of a waymo that leads to the wrong direction in traffic coming.
Based on the data collected by Waymo, its driver -free vehicles had 81% of airbag deployment accidents, 78% fewer crashes causing injury and 62% of the police declared by the police as traditional vehicles leading the same distance.
What does Amazon predict to do with autonomous technology?
Amazon acquired Zoox five years ago as a subsidiary in exclusive property for more than $ 1.2 billion.
Zoox aims to launch a carpooling sales service similar to Uber and Lyft which is based on its specially designed two -way vehicles. But Amazon could have other ideas for the future of autonomous driving, said Brauer. The electronic commerce giant could use driver -free vehicles to make deliveries, for example, save money and resources.
“Autonomous technology is a massive change, and if you are a business like Amazon, you must be involved as quickly as possible,” said Brauer. “Whether it is to move people or cargo or other things that we cannot even conceive, Amazon does not want to be flat.”
