Amazon’s self-driving subsidiary Zoox will increase production next year as it advances plans to launch its custom-built robotaxi service in the United States, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Zoox will open a new facility in California’s Bay Area to support large-scale manufacturing of its autonomous vehicles, expanding beyond its current limited-capacity site in Fremont. “The new site will enable us to be ready to make hundreds and then thousands of vehicles,” said Zoox co-founder Jesse Levinson, according to the Financial Times.
See also: Zoox Expands Robotaxi Testing to Los Angeles with Retrofitted Vehicles
The company has so far deployed around two dozen purpose-built vehicles across six U.S. cities. Its first public ride services are slated to begin in Las Vegas later this year, followed by a rollout in San Francisco.
The announcement follows a similar move by Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving division, which said Monday it will begin production of fully autonomous Jaguar I-PACE and Zeekr vehicles later this year at a new facility in Mesa, Arizona. The factory, developed in partnership with Canadian supplier Magna International, is intended to significantly expand the company’s Waymo One ride-hailing network.
As competition in the autonomous vehicle sector intensifies, U.S. regulators under the previous Trump administration have proposed easing some safety rules and incident-reporting requirements to accelerate deployment.
See also: Tesla’s Autopilot Hardware Head Joins Amazon’s Zoox Amid Self-Driving Push
Alongside Zoox and Waymo, automakers including Tesla and General Motors’ Cruise are also pushing into the robotaxi market. All three have faced federal investigations over the safety and performance of their autonomous fleets.