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Robotaxi, self-driving car from Amazon's Zoox, tested on public road for first time | Watch
The successful exercise was carried out on Feb 11 with company employees as passengers, said Zoox.
Zoox, an Amazon-owned startup that develops autonomous vehicles, has announced it carried out a successful test of its Robotaxi last week, in an exercise that saw the electric vehicle move on a public road for the first time.
In the Feb 11 test, Robotaxi drove itself between two buildings at Zoox's headquarters in Foster City, California, the startup said. The self-driving car, which covered a distance of one mile, carried the company's employees as passengers.
Also, the test run was part of the launch of a no-cost employee shuttle service on the campus, and was described by Zoox CEO Aicha Evans as a ‘big step.’
“We would not have done it internally unless we were already looking at the line of sight for commercial,” Evans told reporters on a conference call, without, however, providing a timeline for Robotaxi's commercial launch.
Robotaxi: Features
(1.) According to Zoox, Robotaxi has been built as a fully autonomous vehicle from scratch, and not developed by retrofitting existing cars for self-driving.
(2.) Unveiled in Dec 2020, the model does not feature a steering or even pedals; it can accommodate four passengers, with two passengers on each side facing each other.
(3.) Though it has a top speed of 75 miles per hour, it will operate on the Foster City route at a top speed of 35 miles per hour.
(4.) It has been given two battery packs, with one under each row of seats. The vehicle can travel for up to 16 hours before recharging.
(5.) To commercialise the technology, the startup aims to launch an app-based ride-hailing service in cities in San Francisco (also in California) and Las Vegas (Nevada).
(With agency inputs)
