Zoox has added Washington DC to its testing roadmap. The company’s testing fleet is now operating in eight cities: the San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, Seattle, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington DC.
Washington is Zoox‘s first Mid-Atlantic testing location. According to the company, it offers a complex and unique street layout, along with seasonal weather challenges. The city’s street network includes many traffic circles, diagonal avenues and high pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Additionally, its mix of humid summers, occasional snowfall and unpredictable rainfall creates diverse weather conditions for testing driving performance.
Washington DC ranks among the largest ride-hailing markets in the United States. The city’s growing population and strong demand for flexible transportation make it a significant location for testing and mapping autonomous technology on the East Coast.
According to Zoox, as is standard when it enters a new city, it began by deploying a few vehicles from the Zoox testing fleet – retrofitted SUVs equipped with safety drivers – in the heart of Washington DC. The fleet has begun by manually mapping within a geofence. It will progress to autonomous testing later this year.
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