SF Chronicle – Zoox to offer driverless rides in its new robotaxis, but only in this part of San Francisco
Editors note: at some point there will be multiple robotaxi companies competing against each other and Uber and Lyft. The competition will increase their financial loses even more.
See original article by Chase DiFeliciantonio at the SF Chronicle
Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle maker Zoox is planning to offer rides in San Francisco after years of testing — but only to its own employees and in select locations, at least to start.
Zoox co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson made the announcement onstage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, the outlet reported.
Levinson said the vehicles will offer rides in its headquarters city of Foster City, as well as in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood and on the Las Vegas Strip.
The company did not provide an exact starting date, but said employee rides would start “in the next few weeks.” A Zoox spokesperson said in an email the rides would be in the company’s bi-directional driverless vehicles.
The company already has “normal” test vehicles that having been cruising the Bay Area while collecting mapping data with drivers behind the wheel.
Zoox has been allowing its employees to ride in the driverless vehicles, when traveling between its Foster City offices, and has been allowing friends and family to ride along in Foster City as well. Employees can also take rides on the Strip in Las Vegas.
Zoox also said in an email that it will begin offering free public rides early next year before opening to paying customers. That service will start in Las Vegas and expand to San Francisco. No date for that phase was provided.
The announcement comes the week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors his company would begin offering rides to employees in the Bay Area using Tesla’s automated driving features, albeit with safety drivers behind the wheel.
Autonomous vehicle companies don’t need additional permits to carry employees, since they are not considered passengers by the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates autonomous vehicles in California.
Companies do need a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test on public roads, which Tesla has. Zoox has permission from the DMV to test piloted and driverless vehicles on state roads under certain conditions and under certain speeds.
Google-owned Waymo has the largest deployed fleet of vehicles operating in California and available for the paying public to take rides. The company said Tuesday that it is providing more than 150,000 paid trips, covering 1 million miles, every week.
See original article by Chase DiFeliciantonio at the SF Chronicle
