City Infrastructure Main Hurdle Faced by Amazon’s Driverless Zoox Cars

Amazon’s driverless vehicle subsidiary Zoox is hoping to get cars on the streets sooner rather than later, but expanding autonomous infrastructure into new locations beyond the initial cities in the testing phase is proving to be a challenge.

Speaking virtually at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in London on Wednesday (Sept. 28), Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said that maintaining a consistent user experience is another challenge the company is facing, but the vehicles should be in new cities “sooner than people expect,” Bloomberg reported.

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Evans didn’t commit to a specific date or timeline, stating that the company prefers to “show, not tell.” She added that autonomous infrastructure must be expanded in order for driverless cars to move onto city streets outside of test locations.

“Our focus is being on public roads with our robotaxi soon, but it’ll be to a small-to-moderate scale,” Evans said. “The question is our ability to add cities on a continual basis that’s good for customers.”

Amazon acquired Zoox in June 2020 for more than $1.2 billion. Founded in 2014, Zoox was valued at $3.2 billion in a 2018 funding round, PYMNTS reported. Amazon had previously established a team for driverless vehicle technology, and in 2019, it participated in a $530 million funding round for autonomous technology firm Aurora Innovation.

The autonomous vehicles developed by Zoox are characterized by the company as robotaxis. The cars don’t have a steering wheel or pedals and can carry up to four passengers.

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“We’ve been talking to regulators since our inception,” Evans said at the event. “We provide data, advice, and it’s an ongoing dialog we expect to go on forever.”

Zoox and its robotaxis are the “beginning of a wave” for autonomous driving, Evans added.