Amazon launches robotaxi service in San Francisco in challenge to Google’s Waymo | San Francisco

Amazon’s Zoox is launching its robotaxi service in San Francisco, offering free rides through parts of the city, as it steps up its attempt to challenge Waymo’s early lead in the race to transport passengers with driverless vehicles.

The expansion, announced Tuesday, will be limited to a few large neighborhoods in San Francisco and will be limited to people who have signed up for a waiting list to ride Zoox’s steering-less gondola-shaped robotaxi. The San Francisco launch comes less than three months after the Amazon-owned robotaxi company launched its first ride-hailing service along the Las Vegas strip.

Zoox doesn’t charge people to ride its robot axis, as Waymo has done since its debut in Phoenix five years ago. Free rides are a major milestone before the likes of Waymo and traditional ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft charge fees; As Amazon tries to make progress in autonomous driving, it’s a journey that began with the e-commerce Goliath’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Zoox in 2020.

California regulators still need to approve Zoox’s application to charge for rides in San Francisco; It’s a permit Waymo received in August 2023 after overcoming security concerns raised by city officials. Since then, Waymo’s robotaxis have become a familiar sight in San Francisco; Here, some tourists now prefer not only to ride in an autonomous car, but also to jump on one of the city’s legendary cable cars, which have been operating for 152 years.

Waymo, which started as a secret project within Google in 2009, also operates its robotaxis in San Jose and Los Angeles in California, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, and plans to expand to New York City, Washington DC and London next year.

Another sign of Waymo’s accelerating growth was that its robot axes began expanding their routes beyond city streets and onto highways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, Arizona. And on Tuesday, the company announced plans to expand to five more U.S. cities: Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, Texas, and Miami and Orlando, Florida. However, passengers will not be able to request a vehicle in these five cities until next year.

Like Waymo already does, Amazon is preparing to bring Zoox’s robotaxi to other major cities, including Austin and Miami. To help Zoox achieve its goals, Amazon converted a former bus factory into a high-tech robotaxi factory in Hayward, California, about 25 miles southeast of San Francisco. Zoox hopes to produce as many as 10,000 robotaxis a year at the facility.