Passenger cars not suitable robotaxi candidates, says Zoox

When testing an autonomous vehicle (AV) it is important to tread the line between safety and innovation. Choose a testing ground that is too simple, and players will struggle to stretch algorithms to their limit and uncover vital edge cases. Go too complex, and testing becomes prohibitively difficult. Most developers have opted to deploy somewhere in the middle, but not all believe in this approach.

One such player is Zoox. It has selected downtown San Francisco as its testbed of choice on the belief that if it can make its AVs work here, they’ll work anywhere in the world.