Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi unit is ramping up automobile manufacturing at a pristine facility in Hayward, California.
Zoox
Amazon-owned self reliant automobile startup Zoox on Wednesday opened a sprawling pristine production facility within the San Francisco Bay Segment, paving the best way for extra robotaxi manufacturing because it plans a industrial rollout of its fleet then this pace.
The corporate will significance the web page in Hayward, California, to extend its robotaxi fleet considerably. The ability is lately generating one robotaxi according to hour, however Zoox mentioned it expects to boost up manufacturing over the approaching pace.
At complete scale, it is going to have the capability to build 10,000 robotaxis a pace, with more or less 3 robotaxis being produced according to future, the corporate mentioned. Zoox didn’t handover a timeline for achieving that manufacturing stage.
“We don’t need to crank out a vehicle every minute because we’re not selling these things,” Zoox CEO Aicha Evans mentioned at the facility’s manufacturing flooring all the way through a excursion.
Zoox wishes extra of its toaster-shaped robotaxis to roll off the meeting fold to bring to satisfy its undertaking of deploying a industrial ride-hailing carrier within the U.S. Zoox, based 11 years in the past and acquired by way of Amazon for $1.3 billion in 2020, started trying out its robotaxis on crowd roads in 2023.
The corporate lately has a couple of accumulation robotaxis on crowd roads in Foster Town, California, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Zoox expects to sooner or later function between 500 and 1,000 robotaxis in small-to-medium sized towns the place it offer ride-hailing products and services, Evans mentioned.
The ability, spanning 3.5 soccer areas, depends on a mixture of human technicians and robots to build Zoox’s bespoke automobiles.
Zoox
The contest
Zoox is racing to catch as much as Alphabet‘s Waymo, which operates the only fully public driverless ride-hailing service in the U.S. Waymo has aggressively expanded into new U.S. markets in recent years, and provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin.
Evans said Zoox is “very proud” of Waymo’s progress, adding that it helps validate the work that Zoox and others are doing to deploy an autonomous ride-hailing service.
Aicha Evans, chief executive officer of Zoox Inc., speaks during the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, June 22, 2023.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Elon Musk’s Tesla is poised to launch its robotaxi service in Austin on June 22, though Musk cautioned that date could shift as the company is “being super paranoid about safety.”
Zoox is gearing up to launch public rides in Las Vegas, its first commercial market, later this year. San Francisco is expected to follow in 2026, with additional locations in Austin and Miami coming in the next few years.
Similar to other rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft, Zoox riders will be able to hail a robotaxi via an app.
Unlike Waymo, which uses Geely Zeekr minivans, Zoox has developed its own custom-built “carriage-style” vehicles, where up to four passengers face each other and there’s no steering wheel. Evans called the robotaxis “high-end computers on wheels.”
Zoox CTO Jesse Levinson has said previously that the price of creating Zoox’s bespoke robotaxis is “significant.” The price of each and every automobile will have to drop down as Zoox scales up its fleet, Levinson mentioned all the way through the excursion.
Zoox mentioned the pristine facility, spanning more or less 3.5 soccer areas, is the primary web page “dedicated solely to producing purpose-built robotaxis” within the U.S., a well-timed advance given President Donald Trump’s competitive tariff insurance policies. The ability was once swamped by way of bus producer Gillig previous to Zoox’s arrival.
About part of the corporate’s providers are primarily based within the U.S., nevertheless it additionally assets some portions from international locations together with China and Italy.
Zoox would possibly unhidden backup production amenities in other places within the U.S. and across the world over era, Evans mentioned.
Zoox’s self reliant carriage has field for as much as 4 passengers.
Zoox
The ability is situated simply around the bay from Zoox’s headquarters in Foster Town, California. The corporate also operates a miniature production facility in Fremont, California, which can now be impaired to build its check fleet of retrofitted Toyota SUVs and to configure the sensor pods that take a seat atop its robotaxis, enabling them to peer in all instructions.
The Hayward facility lately employs about 100 technicians. Zoox additionally makes use of robots for explicit duties at the flooring like making use of adhesive for glass set up and transporting the robotaxi from station to station i’m sick the meeting fold.
As soon as the automobile is assembled, it is going via end-of-line trying out. This features a calibration bay to assure all cameras and sensors paintings correctly, a station that pressure exams the powertrain at prime speeds and next the automobile takes a “shower” in a simulated rainstorm to test for any leaks.
The robotaxis whisk a number of laps round a check observe situated at the back of the ability ahead of they’re regarded as “fit for the road,” Zoox mentioned.
Zoox has ramped up advertising and marketing because it prepares to unhidden its carrier to the crowd.
“Because the vehicle looks so different, we need to announce ourselves,” Evans mentioned.
