Amazon’s Zoox to start testing AVs in Atlanta, following Waymo

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Amazon’s autonomous vehicle unit Zoox is about to start mapping and gathering data in Atlanta, Georgia, a precursor to testing its self-driving vehicles and eventually offering public rides in the city.

Atlanta will become the seventh city in the U.S. where Zoox is testing its vehicles. The company announced its testing plans just one day after Waymo — along with partner Uber — said it would start offering rides in its own robotaxis to early access users in Atlanta ahead of a larger public launch this summer.

Zoox is taking a methodical approach to the rollout of its promised robotaxi service. In Atlanta, as in other cities, the company says it will initially use its modified Toyota Highlanders to record things like the geometry of each road and the location of traffic lights. Only after that will Zoox start testing its autonomous vehicle technology.

The company has progressed to testing its purpose-built robotaxi without a safety operator in California cities like Foster City and San Francisco, as well as in Las Vegas, Nevada. Zoox plans to offer public rides in San Francisco and Las Vegas by the end of this year.

As part of that process, the company has been working out kinks in its autonomous vehicle technology. Zoox issued recalls in March and in May related to software updates meant to fix problems that its self-driving test fleet have encountered during testing.