Zoox chooses Washington DC as its next autonomous vehicle testbed

The Zoo, owned by Amazon, will start mapping the roads in Washington DC because this year it has created a ramp to start testing its self-driving vehicles in the country’s capital.

The zoo said in a blog post on Tuesday that it will start manually by Toyota Highlanders to run the Toyota Highlanders manually. The company plans to start the examination of its autonomous vehicles (with human security operators behind the wheel) later this year.

“Its growing population and high demand for flexible transportation options, the district is an ideal next position to start our technology test and mapping on the east coast,” the company wrote in its blog post.

The zoo will not divide the details of how many autonomous vehicles will be used to test the city. A spokesman told TechCrunch that the company will start with a small fleet that will grow over time.

Since the establishment of Foster City, California -based company in the 21st, Silicon Valley and San Francisco have grown very well. Today, the zoo has carried out several hundred test vehicles on public roads and private exam tracks in Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Maiai, San Francisco and Sittle. There will be Washington DC’s eighth exam site.

The zoo is also working towards launching a commercial Robotaxi service with a growing fleet of its custom-Biltxis, which is lacking in traditional tidal control such as steering wheel or pedal. The company recently launched a free robotaxi service in Las Vegas, it was an anchor market where it was office and tested since 2019.

The company has finally aims to launch commercial robotaxi services in multiple markets. It still needs to meet some regulatory requirements, including its custom, driverless vehicles to commercially deployed from the Federal Government.

The zoo has made progress on that front: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Zoo has given a discount to the Zoos to display its custom-bill Robotaxis on the official street, although it only includes research and demonstration on public roads. The zoo has since filed a separate application that will make the opportunity further enhanced and pave the way to launch commercial robotuxi services.