Amazon Just Landed a Big Win in the Race Against Tesla and Waymo
Tesla and Waymo were just put on notice, with Amazon's Zoox receiving federal approval for its driverless vehicles. It will begin charging for its service soon.
Overview
The race to operating fleets of driverless vehicle robotaxis is heating up among a number of significant competitors. Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) Waymo has already tallied up more than 220 million fully autonomous miles, rider-only with no supervision. Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) Cybercab ambitions are well publicized, even if its driverless programs are only slowly expanding. But it was actually Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) that recently landed a big win against its competitors.
Amazon-owned Zoox was just given temporary permission by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to commercially deploy steering-wheel-free robotaxis, adding pressure to the robotaxi competition. This is significant because the vast majority of competitors, such as Waymo, are modifying traditional passenger cars. The difference is that the Zoox vehicle was developed from the ground up and is produced without manual controls, making it the first purpose-built driverless vehicle to receive approval.
Zoox vehicle in Las Vegas. Image source: Amazon.
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Originally published at www.fool.com.