Zoox has begun deployment of its purpose-built robotaxi on public roads in Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, and is expanding its service in San Francisco, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, in the latest phase in its expansion of autonomous ride-hailing services.
The Amazon-owned mobility company began a testing program in Austin and Miami in mid-2024 with a fleet of retrofitted Zoox vehicles to map the cities and train its AI systems. These vehicles operated with safety drivers while collecting data, which was then transferred to the company’s purpose-built robotaxi platform.
In this next phase, the robotaxi will operate in selected areas of Austin – including West and East Sixth, downtown, East Cesar Chavez, Riverside and the Rainey Street district – and Miami. Access to the robotaxi service will be limited to Zoox employees and their family and friends at first, before a broader rollout.
Zoox is also expanding its service in Las Vegas with new pickup and drop-off locations – including the Las Vegas Convention Center and a majority of the major hotels along the Strip – and in San Francisco where it is bringing its service to eastern areas of the city – including the Marina, North Beach and Chinatown, as well as Pacific Heights and along the Embarcadero – in a quadrupling of its geofence in the city.
“This expansion marks a significant step forward for Zoox and is driven by the insights from our early deployments,” said Aicha Evans, CEO, Zoox. “This is our year of growth. We are actively implementing learnings to confidently and safely scale our robotaxi service across the country and bring our differentiated experience to even more riders.”
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