Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is preparing to achieve an annual production capacity of up to 0.01 million robotic taxis at its factory near Silicon Valley, in order to compete with leaders in the autonomous taxi field, Waymo and Tesla.
According to Zhangtong Finance APP, Amazon (AMZN.US) announced on Wednesday that it is preparing to achieve an annual production capacity of up to 0.01 million Robotics taxis at a factory near Silicon Valley to compete with leaders in the autonomous taxi field, Waymo under Alphabet (GOOGL.US) and Tesla (TSLA.US).
To enter the Robotics taxi sector, this e-commerce giant acquired the autonomous driving startup Zoox five years ago for 1.2 billion dollars. It is reported that Zoox is expected to launch its passenger service in Las Vegas later this year and expand its Business to San Francisco next year.
Waymo, under Alphabet, began operating Robotics taxis in Phoenix five years ago and has since expanded its service area to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas.
Waymo claims to have completed over 10 million paid rides, while Amazon's Zoox and Tesla are still optimizing their autonomous driving technology and working to expand their fleets. Amazon believes that the Zoox manufacturing plant located in Hayward, California has resolved its capacity issues.
Reports indicate that Zoox aims to achieve an annual production of 0.01 million Robotics taxis at its Hayward factory by 2027, which will aid its expansion into major markets such as Miami, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
Currently, this autonomous driving startup is still testing vehicles in San Francisco. Last month, during testing, a Zoox Robotics taxi had a minor collision with a pedestrian using an electric scooter, prompting the company to proactively initiate a technology upgrade.
Zoox CEO Aicha Evans stated, "Zoox plans to deploy 500 to 1,000 robotic taxis in small to medium-sized markets, with about 2,000 units in the main cities where it will operate in the end." She added, "The company expects each robotic taxi produced at the Hayward factory to serve for about five years, with a mileage of up to 0.5 million miles."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also actively positioning in the robotic taxi space, trying to ultimately compete with Waymo. However, it is still unclear when Tesla will fulfill its promise to create the world's largest robotic taxi service. Musk plans to launch a limited-scale pilot of Tesla's robotic taxi this Sunday in Austin, Texas.
However, Tesla's robotic taxis face multiple challenges—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation has issued a series of inquiries to Tesla regarding its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software.
As Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla focus on expanding fleets across cities, the competition for autonomous taxis in the United States is intensifying. Globally, companies such as Baidu, WeRide, and Pony.ai have also joined this race.
