Zoox offers robo-taxis to Austin and Miami

Zoox is bringing a purpose-built robotaxi to Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, after nearly two years of running its experimental vehicles in the cities. The company said Tuesday that it plans to start offering rides at both locations later this year as part of its early rider program.

Zoox also announced that it is expanding its service areas in San Francisco and Las Vegas. The San Francisco service area has quadrupled in size with a focus on the “eastern half of the city” for people participating in Zoox’s early rider program.

In Las Vegas, where free rides are available to anyone with the Zoox app, the company says it is doubling the number of destinations to include The Sphere, T-Mobile Arena and the Las Vegas Convention Center. Zoox is already dropping off and picking up riders at Area15, Top Golf and Fashion Show Las Vegas. Zoox will begin testing its robotaxis at the Las Vegas airport in preparation for future service as well, the company said Tuesday.

Currently, Zoox can only offer free rides to customers due to federal restrictions it is working to remove. Some progress has been made on this front.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration It began receiving public comments this month Upon Zoox’s request for exemptions from certain federal motor vehicle safety standards. Zoox needs these exemptions to launch commercial services with paid rides.

The company seemed optimistic that it would get it, and earlier this month announced a Partnership with Uber This should make Zoox’s robo-taxi available on the ride-hailing giant’s network in Las Vegas later this year.

Zoox said Tuesday that its robotaxis have traveled “nearly 2 million self-driving miles” and carried “more than 350,000 passengers” so far. It also said it is collecting feedback from many of those riders, leading to new features like the robot’s Bluetooth voice calling (dubbed “ZooxCast”) and a “Find My Zoox” feature that will help riders find the robot they praised in crowded locations.

The Amazon-owned self-driving vehicle company is not expanding as quickly as Alphabet-owned Waymo, which plans to launch commercial services in 20 new cities globally this year. However, Zoox is having a busy year. Started recently Street mapping Dallas and Phoenix before testing in those cities. It has already been tested in Washington, D.C., Seattle, Washington, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.