The Robotaxi subsidiary of Zoox, Amazon, opened a new production facility in California to build thousands of self-driving vehicles from Toaster, the company said on Wednesday.
The opening of the 220,000 square meter facility in Hayward, California. However, it may take some time for the Zoox to operate the capacity, as it has not even brought commercial operations onto the market.
Zoox, which has been working on self -driving auto technology since 2014, offers trips in pod -like vehicles without steering wheels or pedals to employees and selected invitations in the Bay Area and Las Vegas in 2023.
It also expanded its fleet of test vehicles –Toyota Highlanders who were classified with radar and lidar sensors and operated by security drivers – in Austin and Miami last year.
Since Zoox is preparing for the commercial introduction of its robotaxi service, which is planned for later this year, the company had to fight with a few hiccups. In April Zoox pulled 258 vehicles off the road to update its software after his test vehicles were involved in two accidents with motorcyclists. NHTSA opened a preliminary investigation after the accidents, although she ended the probe after the Zoox had released software update. In May, the Zoox carried out two more recalls – for the first time after an incident, in which one of his robotaxis collided with a passenger vehicle in Las Vegas, and later another, in which one person on a scooter came across a taxi unit.
In general, Zoox has more work than his competitors to familiarize people with their vehicles before the start. The Amazon-Zoox is the only self-driving company in the USA that follows a commercial start with a “specially built” Robotaxi what means that the Zoox vehicles will not be transported with steering wheels or pedals. While other companies, including Waymo and Teslahave presented designs for their own vehicles without pedals or steering wheels. None of them are currently using such vehicles with customers on the street. Tesla, which is expected to launch his robotaxi service in Austin later this month, uses its standard cars from model Y, and Waymo uses modified Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in the four cities in which it is operated.
Set vehicles on the streets without standard controls such as steering wheels and pedals presents its own hurdles. On the one hand, rescue workers have to be familiar with vehicles that they have never seen before. And vehicles without controls are also more difficult to move if they get stuck, since nobody can hop and manually drive away a vehicle. Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox, said that the robotaxis Maybe it must be towed In these scenarios when remote support cannot help.
At the same time, the federal supervisory authorities have given plans to take vehicles such as Robotaxi from Zoox to walk on the street. The Ministry of Transport announced that it was presented to optimize the liberation process so that companies could receive permits for the operation of vehicles without conventional controls faster. Zexi self -certified That its specially built robotaxis already fulfills all federal security guidelines.
When it opened its new production facility, Zoox said that his former assembly system in Fremont, California, will now be dedicated to the retrofitting of his test fleet with its autonomous system and its software as well as for the sensor -pod configuration. Zoox took over the building for the first time in 2023 and started the Robotaxi assembly system at the end of last year. Around 100 employees are currently working on it, and the company says that it is set for more manufacturing, engineering, logistics and operating roles to scale the production.
