Zoox says that it has begun testing a fully autonomous pod with no human-oriented controls on public roads in Las Vegas. The Amazon-owned company is the first to deploy a completely driverless, purpose-built robotaxi in the state of Nevada.
Since June 16, the vehicle has been on public roads in the state, but remains strictly limited in where it can go. The Zoox vehicle is only allowed to drive a one-mile loop around the company’s Las Vegas headquarters. It will be restricted to speeds of up to 35 mph (56 km/h), and the first riders will all be employees of the company.
The vehicle’s rollout in Nevada follows a similar implementation in California, where the pod acts as a shuttle, ferrying Zoox employees from one building to another. Despite the limited nature of both routes, the vehicle is being operated on busy public roads where it must contend with other drivers, cyclists, and more. The company says that it will use this testing in order to help it build a better service in the future.
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“Deploying our robotaxi on open public roads in California and now Nevada is a big step for Zoox,” said Jesse Levinson, Zoox’s co-founder and CTO. “Driving autonomously in these two unique but equally challenging locations will provide us with invaluable learnings as we fine-tune our technology in preparation for commercial launch.”
Zoox first established a presence in Las Vegas in 2019, when it launched a test fleet of Toyota Highlanders. Since then, it has been gathering data, mapping the area, and learning the city’s unique driving conditions.
Those Highlanders were driving autonomously on Las Vegas roads, but had a human safety operator inside to step in if things went wrong. By contrast, its new autonomous vehicle cannot have a human driver, because it has no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals.
Zoox was purchased by Amazon in 2020 for $1.3 billion. The company is one of a handful working to introduce fully autonomous taxis to America’s roads. Competitors include GM’s Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo, which are both operating autonomous vehicles on public roads.
