Amazon's Driverless Zoox Taxi Hits The Streets Of Foster City

FOSTER CITY, CA — Zoox, the Amazon subsidiary that created an autonomous self-driving robotaxi, witnessed the vehicle’s inaugural voyage on public roads over the weekend, when the company’s employees were shuttled through the streets of Foster City.

The vehicle, which has no steering wheel or pedals, has received state approval to operate on public thoroughfares, according to Zoox. Starting this spring, the robotaxi will shuttle full-time employees between the company’s two Foster City office buildings during business hours, carrying up to four people at a time and traveling as fast as 35 mph.

“Today, with the announcement of the maiden run of our autonomous employee shuttle, we are adding to the progress this industry has seen over the last year and bringing Zoox one step closer to a commercialized purpose-built robotaxi service for the general public,” CEO Aicha Evans said Monday in a news release.

The vehicle is the world’s first purpose-built autonomous robotaxi without traditional driving controls to traverse open public roads with passengers, according to the company. It has undergone thousands of testing scenarios and in July became the first vehicle of its kind to be self-certified by its company to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, according to Zoox.

“With the ability to operate our vehicle on public roads and the deployment of our employee shuttle service, we’ll continue to refine and improve our technology and operations as we prepare for our commercial service launch,” Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson said in the news release.

The robotaxi was unveiled in 2020 and shares characteristics with GM’s driverless Cruise and autonomous Origin vehicles, as well as Alphabet’s Waymo, according to CNBC, which reported the Cruise and Waymo were cleared last year to serve as driverless taxis in California.