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Watch: Amazon tests their robotaxi on public roads among traffic, with employees as passengers
Amazon recently tested Zoox, their robotaxi on public roads. The driverless cab even had Amazon's employees sitting in it as passengers. Amazon plans to use Zoox on their own campuses and lease it out to cab companies like Uber for public use.
Tech enthusiasts and petrolheads will have you believe that driverless cars are the future and soon, driving your own car would be as medieval as writing with a quill. While that may be the case in the future, as of now, very little progress has been made about driverless cars. Even Tesla’s autopilot system, needs a driver to be present at the wheel, ready to take charge when things go wrong.Amazon, though, has been playing in a different league. They have made quite some advancements as far as driverless tech goes. In fact, Amazon’s self-driving vehicle division, Zoox, successfully tested a driverless taxi or robotaxi as they like to call it, which was occupied by Amazon employees as passengers, on a public road. This takes them one step closer to plying them in commercial service for the general public.Zoox’s testAmazon hopes that with Zoox, they will be able to launch a no-cost employee shuttle service that will also help the company refine its technology and sell it to city councils, universities and other institutes with large enclosed campuses. The most recent test took place on February 11, and was conducted between two Zoox buildings, situated about a mile apart at its headquarters in Foster City, California."Putting the vehicle on (an) open public road and validating our approach to all of the different requirements, including regulatory, is a big step and we would not have done it unless internally we were already looking at the line of sight for going commercial," Chief Executive Aicha Evans told reporters on a conference call.Amazon and Zoox are yet to finalise a date or give a timeline for the commercial launch of their service, mainly because they are still awaiting some additional clearances and licenses from the government.Other EV and automobile makers with a similar serviceThe autonomous vehicle market has not taken off as quickly as anticipated since the technology has proven to be challenging to master. Last October, it was announced by Ford Motors and Volkswagen that they would shut down their Argo AI self-driving business and concentrate on driver-assistance technologies that offered more immediate returns.Alphabet-owned Google’s Waymo and General Motors’s Cruise division both continue to work on this technology.How Zoox’s approach differsIn contrast to adapting existing vehicles for self-driving, Zoox's robotaxi was constructed from the ground up as a completely autonomous vehicle. It lacks a steering wheel and pedals and has space for four passengers, two of whom are facing each other.Zoox was purchased by online retailer Amazon for $1.3 billion in 2020 as part of its ambitious expansion into self-driving technologies.Zoox also released a promotional video for their robot axis ripping a race track apart. With a top speed of 75mph or 120kmph, Zoox’s robotaxi is one of the vehicles in the world that can work without a driver. Thoughts of a worldwide recession were triggered by quick interest rate increases and sluggish consumer demand, which forced many businesses, including automakers and internet behemoths, to reduce their workforces and recover costs.Jesse Levinson, the head of technology at Zoox, said the firm had been cautious in its expansion but was still on course to hire 2,500 people this year, up from just under 2,000 at the start of the year.Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
First Published:Feb 14, 2023, 16:11:21 IST
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