Amazon is testing its self-driving robotaxi with own employees on public roads

Amazon's Zoox has announced that it has successfully tested a self-driving car with its own employees as passengers. The test, which took place on a public road between two Zoox buildings in California, was part of the launch of a no-cost employee shuttle service that will also help the company refine its technology.

Zoox is building a fully autonomous vehicle from scratch, without retrofitting existing cars for self-driving, and it comes without a steering wheel or pedals. It has room for four passengers, with two facing each other. The technology is being developed to meet regulatory requirements, and the test run on a public road was a significant milestone in the process.

According to a report by Reuters, Zoox CEO, Aicha Evans said, "Putting the vehicle on (an) open public road and validating our approach to all of the different requirements, including regulatory, is a big step, and we would not have done it unless internally we were already looking at the line of sight for going commercial."

While Evans declined to provide a timeline for the commercial launch, the successful test is a significant development for the company, which was acquired by Amazon in 2020 for $1.3 billion. However, regulatory hurdles have slowed the progress toward commercial deployment, with other companies such as Waymo and Cruise also facing challenges.

Despite these challenges, Zoox's tech chief, Jesse Levinson, said the company was still on track to reach 2,500 employees this year, up from just under 2,000 employees at the beginning of the year. And with the self-driving vehicle market continuing to heat up, it seems that the race to perfect this technology is far from over. Who knows, we may all be chauffeured around by robots sooner than we think!