Austinites will soon see a self-driving car roaming the streets again, now that Amazon’s Zoox has decided to add the Texas capital to its growing list of test cities.
Self-driving cars are a source of growing concern and controversy after several incidents in places like San Francisco and on the East Coast. However, to date, none of these incidents have occurred in Austin.
After varying local reactions to Alphabet’s self-driving Waymo cars, which crashed into a speed bump last month amid a federal investigation, Zoox hopes to find a place in the city.
With the latest self-driving technology putting rubber on the road, here’s everything you need to know about who Zoox is, when test drives start, and what happened to Waymo cars.
What is Zoox?
Founded in 2014, Zoox is Amazon’s answer to self-driving car innovation from tech rivals like Alphabet and Tesla. Despite now being funded by the all-encompassing company, Zoox has only been working with Amazon since 2020.
In 2022, Strio.AI, a Boston-based robotics company applying automation and AI to agricultural applications, joined Zoox. Later that year, Zoox became the first company to self-certify a purpose-built, fully autonomous, all-electric passenger vehicle to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
2023 marked the first year that Zoox ever tested its cars on public roads, starting with drives through the DMV and various places in California. The company also added Vegas to the list of cities where it operates last year.
According to Zoox, self-driving cars, with safety drivers, should appear on the streets of Austin in July.
Self-driving cars from Alphabet’s Waymo halted due to investigation
In May, the Statesman reported that self-driving car company Waymo was at the center of a federal investigation into the company’s safety and oversight.
On May 13, reports that Waymo self-driving cars were causing traffic problems in several cities led to a preliminary review of the company by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to USA Today, the company is under investigation for collisions or traffic violations in nearly two dozen incidents.
NHTSA is only investigating the fifth generation of cars from Waymo, owned by Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. The agency plans to focus its investigation on the cars’ automated driving system and its ability to detect and respond to traffic control devices, the NHTSA release said.
It should be noted that none of the crashes studied occurred in Austin, however, 17 separate crashes were identified based on NHTSA data.
Beck Andrew Salgado covers trending topics in Austin’s business ecosystem for the American-Statesman. To share additional tips or insights Salgado, email Bsalgado@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Amazon’s Zoox to bring self-driving cars back to Austin; what to know
