Table of Contents Zoox's New Manufacturing Facility Can Pump Out 10K Robotaxis a Year
As it gears up for its commercial launch, self-driving company Zoox on Wednesday shared that it's opened a 220,000-square-foot serial production facility for its purpose-built robotaxis. Located in Hayward, California, it's deemed to be the first-ever such facility in the US and will allow for the assembly of around 10,000 robotaxis a year.
"The number of Zoox robotaxis we produce will grow and scale to match the demand of our commercial service as needed," the company noted in a blog post.
Zoox is owned by Amazon and operates its boxy robotaxis -- which it also designs and builds itself -- in Las Vegas and San Francisco, with plans to launch commercially later this year. It's also deployed its ground-up robotaxis for employees in Foster City, California, where its headquarters are located. In addition, Zoox is testing its self-driving technology in other cities, including Seattle, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, aboard a fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlanders with a safety driver behind the wheel.
Watch this: This Robotaxi Looks and Drives Like No Car You've Ever Seen Before 11:09
Unlike its test fleet, Zoox's purpose-built robotaxis have no steering wheel, pedals or driver's seat. I took a ride aboard the pod-like vehicle in Las Vegas in October, and despite the unique form factor, it felt like an oddly normal drive. There are buttons for contacting emergency services throughout the vehicle to help put riders at ease. It also has what the company calls a "horseshoe airbag," which will inflate from the top and envelop each rider if the vehicle gets into an accident (which is assuring given all the windows).
See also: No Steering Wheel, Pedals or Driver's Seat: Is Zoox the Future of Robotaxis?
The new facility in Hayward will be used for everything from robotaxi assembly to end-of-line testing before deploying the vehicles. Zoox's existing manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, in which it previously carried out these functions, is now being repurposed for retrofitting its test fleet and for sensor pod configuration.
"This is what will help us move from the gradual approach of introducing this service to then being able to scale it -- not only to Las Vegas and San Francisco, where we will start this operation, but also to many cities in the US," Corrado Lanzone, Zoox's vice president of manufacturing operations, told me in an interview.
Zoox's many components are pieced together at its San Francisco Bay Area facility. Zoox
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