Last Updated 5 days by Amnon J. Jobi | Amnon Front Page
Robotaxis made by the Amazon company Zoox are slated to hit the streets of Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City, California, later this year.
The carriage-style, blue shuttles can fit four people inside and don’t have a driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals.
“It’s symmetrical, it’s bi-directional, it’s really designed for a wonderful customer experience in a social seating arrangement on the inside,” said Zoox Co-founder Jesse Levinson. “And you really use it the way you’d use a ride-hailing app, except you don’t have to deal with a random driver and you get a safe and consistent experience.”
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For now, the only people riding in these robotaxis are company employees and special guests. But Zoox says they will soon be made available to the general public as a ride-hailing service.
Before that happens, however, the company will continue to run safety tests on the vehicles. Last year, Zoox faced a federal investigation over rear end crashes after some of the vehicles would brake suddenly.
“Developing autonomous vehicles and getting the technology to the point where it’s safe enough to drive on public roads with no driver has certainly taken Zoox and the industry many, many years,” Levinson said. “It’s a very challenging problem because the safety bar is so high, you have to be able to handle just about any situation.”
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“We’ve collected many, many millions of miles of data on public roads and run so many more than millions of simulations to really test just about anything that could happen, and get that safety and reliability to the point where it’s better than a human driver,” Levinson added. “That has taken quite some time but we’re very happy we’re at that level now and we’re excited to roll it out.”
Las Vegas resident Henry Suarez said he’s excited to see the new robotaxis on the Strip.
“I don’t think there will be any problem or anything,” he told Scripps News Las Vegas.
But not everyone is on board.
“It makes me really uneasy,” said Chelsey Radtke. “I don’t like things I don’t have control over.”
Zoox says it expects to roll out the public service later this year and rides will initially be free for people who want to test out the service. The robotaxis are currently on display this week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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