Autonomous vehicles from Amazon’s Zoox subsidiary will soon be traveling the rainy streets of Seattle.
The e-tail giant, which acquired autonomous vehicle start-up Zoox for a reported cost of over $1.2bn in June 2020, will bring testing of Zoox vehicles to Seattle. Zoox has been testing its L3 self-driving vehicle prototype in Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area for more than four years.
Testing in Seattle will expose the vehicle and its artificial intelligence technology to a fresh set of environmental conditions, including different weather and infrastructure, different by-laws and a “different driving culture,” Amazon said. The experience will help iterate the system’s hardware and software, ultimately broadening the capabilities of Zoox. Additionally, expanding the vehicle test will give Amazon the ability to create geofences and maps specific to the Seattle area, including road features such as bike lanes, speed limits, and traffic lights.
“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, and it’s the exact same principle for our technology,” said Kai Wang, Director of Prediction at Zoox, in an Amazon corporate blog post. “The challenges of the Seattle area will let us hone our software stack and ultimately improve the behaviour of our vehicles.”
