Amazon accelerates the construction of the Zoox robotaxi factory, challenging Waymo and Tesla

According to Zhitong Finance APP, Amazon (AMZN.US) announced on Wednesday that it is preparing to achieve an annual production capacity of up to 10,000 robot taxis at a factory near Silicon Valley to compete with leaders in the autonomous taxi field, Waymo under Alphabet (GOOGL.US) and Tesla (TSLA.US). To enter the robot taxi market, the e-commerce giant acquired the autonomous driving startup Zoox for $1.2 billion five years ago. It is reported that Zoox is expected to launch passenger services in Las Vegas later this year and expand its operations to San Francisco next year. Waymo, under Alphabet, began its robot taxi operations in Phoenix five years ago and has since expanded its service area to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas. Waymo claims to have completed over 10 million paid rides, while Amazon's Zoox and Tesla are still optimizing autonomous driving technology and working to expand their fleets. Amazon believes that the Zoox manufacturing plant in Hayward, California has resolved capacity issues. Reports indicate that Zoox aims to achieve an annual production of 10,000 robot taxis at its Hayward plant by 2027, which will aid its expansion into major markets such as Miami, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Currently, the autonomous driving startup is still conducting vehicle tests in San Francisco. During testing last month, a Zoox robot taxi had a minor collision with a pedestrian using an electric scooter, prompting the company to proactively initiate a technology upgrade. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans stated, "Zoox plans to deploy 500 to 1,000 robot taxis in mid-sized markets, with about 2,000 deployed in the major cities where it ultimately operates." She added, "The company expects each robot taxi produced at the Hayward plant to serve for about five years, covering a mileage of 500,000 miles." Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also actively laying out plans for the robot taxi market, attempting to eventually compete with Waymo. However, it remains uncertain when Tesla will fulfill its promise of creating the world's largest robot taxi service. Musk plans to launch a limited-scale pilot of Tesla's robot taxi in Austin, Texas this Sunday. However, Tesla's robot taxi faces multiple challenges — the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's defect investigation office has issued a series of inquiries to Tesla regarding its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. As Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla focus on expanding their fleets across cities, the competition for autonomous taxis in the United States is intensifying. Globally, companies such as Baidu (BIDU.US), WeRide (WRD.US), and Pony.ai (PONY.US) have also joined the race