Amazon’s Zoox is building a factory in the San Francisco Bay Area designed to produce up to 10,000 robotaxis per year:
Amazon is gearing up to make as many as 10,000 robotaxis annually at a sprawling plant near Silicon Valley as it prepares to challenge self-driving cab leader Waymo. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also vying to join the autonomous race.
The 220,000-square-foot robotaxi factory announced Wednesday heralds a new phase in Amazon’s push into a technological frontier that began taking shape in 2009, when Waymo was launched as a secret project within Google.
Amazon began eyeing the market five years ago when it shelled out $1.2 billion for self-driving startup Zoox, which will be the brand behind a robotaxi service that plans to begin transporting customers in Las Vegas late this year before expanding into San Francisco next year.
Zoox, conceived in 2014, will be trying to catch up to Waymo, which began operating robotaxis in Phoenix nearly five years ago. It started charging for rides in San Francisco in 2023 and also expanded into Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Waymo says it has recorded more than 10 million paid rides while other would-be rivals such as Amazon and Tesla are still fine-tuning their self-driving technology and tackling how to ramp up their fleet.
Self-driving cars are generally safer than human-driven cars.
Waymo self-driving taxis now transport thousands of passengers every day in American cities. Robotaxis aren’t the only robots are making life better.
Robots are also saving lives by doing difficult and dangerous tasks. German robots hunted the North Sea for tens of thousands of unexploded World War II bombs.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.”
Robots with artificial intelligence have been spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Robots replaced some fast-food workers after California increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour, which many restaurants just couldn’t afford. Thousands of fast-food workers lost their jobs due to the minimum wage hike.
