Amazon Self-Driving Cars Headed to Seattle

Seattle should offer more road knowledge and a climate different from that of the western United States, in which Zoox’s tests have run so far.

Amazon’s self-driving cars are coming to Seattle, Washington, in an extension of the ongoing tests in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

Amazon’s Zoox plans to deploy a fleet of Toyota Highlanders with sensor technology and autonomous driving software.

The cars are operated with level 3 autonomy, with the car being able to navigate point-to-point journeys under conditions, but with a human operator backup, as is the case for most autonomous vehicle (AV ) is typical.

The plan is to incorporate road knowledge in the more temperate weather conditions in the northeast into Zoox’s artificial intelligence (AI) software.

The freeway laws in Seattle are different from those in Las Vegas and San Francisco, with the speed limit set at 25 in Seattle compared to 50 mph in the other cities.

Data extracted from Zoox’s test program would feed into the automatic calibration, location and mapping over local terrain, filling 3D graphs for road features such as traffic lights, bike lanes and speed limit notifications.

Amazon acquired California-based Zoox in 2020.