Amazon’s self-driving car company Zoox said that it has successfully tested a Robotaxi on public roads with employees as passengers, a move that brings the company closer to its goal of providing commercial services to the public. In response, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sent his blessing on social media.
The test took place on Feb. 11 between two buildings at Zoox’s headquarters in Foster City, California, separated by a mile. The test was part of the company’s rollout of a free employee shuttle service that will also help the company improve its technology.
Aicha Evans, the company’s chief executive officer, said, “Getting cars on open public roads and validating ways to meet all the different requirements, including regulation, is a big step, and we wouldn’t do it unless we were already thinking about commercialization internally.”
Evans declined to provide a timeline for making it commercially available because it would require additional government permits.
The industry’s self-driving car segment has not rolled out as quickly as initially expected, as the technology has proven difficult to master. Ford and Volkswagen announced last fall that they would shutter their Argo artificial intelligence self-driving unit to focus instead on assisted driving technologies that offer more immediate returns.
The technology is still being developed by GM’s Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo.
Zoox’s Robotaxi, a fully self-driving car built from scratch rather than a modification of an existing self-driving car, has no steering wheel or pedals and can seat four passengers, two of whom sit facing each other.
Online retailer Amazon has been aggressively expanding into self-driving technology, acquiring Zoox for $1.3 billion in 2020.
But rapid interest rate hikes and weak consumer demand have sparked fears of a global recession, forcing many companies, including automakers and tech giants, to lay off workers and cut costs.
Zoox’s technology chief Jesse Levinson said the company has been cautious about its growth but is still on track to reach 2,500 employees this year, up from fewer than 2,000 earlier this year.
