Amazon is bringing its autonomous vehicles to roads in Phoenix.
Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi service, will begin testing its fleet vehicles in downtown Phoenix in the coming weeks. The company said its expansion to Phoenix allows it to test in extreme heat and dusty conditions.
Zoox already operates in 10 different markets across the U.S., but only offers passenger service in Las Vegas and San Francisco.
In a statement, the company said it will first roll out a testing fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlanders with human operators to map the roads before beginning passenger service.
Its purpose-built autonomous vehicles have carriage-style seating and are built without a driver in mind. The robotaxis do not have a steering wheel, pedals or a driver’s seat.
Zoox is opening an operations center in Scottsdale this spring to handle remote guidance and real-time rider support.
“Phoenix and Dallas are both rapidly growing metropolitan areas with high demand for ride-hailing and first- and last-mile connections,” Zoox said in a release. “Expanding into these cities allows us to test in sprawling environments, differentiating this data from our testing in other dense metro areas like San Francisco.”
