Amazon is preparing to manufacture up to 10,000 robotaxis per year at a massive new facility near Silicon Valley, marking a significant step in its effort to rival autonomous driving leader Waymo. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also competing in the growing self-driving market.
The newly unveiled 220,000-square-foot (20,440-square-meter) factory represents a major milestone in Amazon’s autonomous vehicle ambitions, which date back to its $1.2 billion acquisition of self-driving startup Zoox five years ago. Zoox, founded in 2014, is set to power Amazon’s robotaxi service, which will begin operations in Las Vegas later this year and expand to San Francisco in 2025.
The facility, located in Hayward, California—just 17 miles (27 km) north of a Tesla manufacturing plant—occupies the former site of a bus factory. Since moving in during 2023, Zoox has transformed the space into a state-of-the-art assembly plant with a 21-station production line. The company is currently producing one robotaxi per day, but aims to ramp up to three vehicles per hour by next year. At full capacity, with two eight-hour shifts, Zoox hopes to reach an annual output of 10,000 vehicles to serve markets like Miami, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
While the robotaxis are assembled in the U.S., roughly half of their components are imported, according to company officials. Zoox vehicles are fully autonomous, carriage-style units with no steering wheels, seating up to four passengers—setting them apart from Waymo’s vehicles, which use modified cars from existing automakers and retain traditional designs.
Waymo, a Google spin-off that launched as a secret project in 2009, has a significant lead in the field. It began its commercial robotaxi operations in Phoenix nearly five years ago and now offers paid rides in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. To date, Waymo claims to have completed over 10 million paid rides. On Wednesday, it also filed an application to begin testing in New York City and has plans to expand into Miami and Atlanta.
Despite trailing behind, Zoox believes its unique vehicle design and customer experience will help it compete.
“It’s an exciting time to be heading on this journey,” said Zoox CEO Aicha Evans during a tour of the Hayward facility, alongside co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson.
Zoox’s current testing includes operations in San Francisco and Las Vegas, where it has partnered with Resorts World to provide rides for guests. Last month, a minor collision involving a Zoox robotaxi and an electric scooter in San Francisco led to a voluntary recall to update the vehicle’s software, though no injuries occurred.
Meanwhile, Tesla is still working to enter the robotaxi space. CEO Elon Musk had once promised a fleet of 1 million robotaxis by 2020, but that target remains unmet. Musk is now aiming for a small-scale launch in Austin this Sunday, though he has warned the timeline could shift, citing his “super paranoid” stance on safety.
Zoox has plans to deploy between 500 and 1,000 robotaxis in smaller cities and around 2,000 in larger urban centers. Each robotaxi, built at the Hayward plant, is expected to operate for about five years or 500,000 miles.
Though still in catch-up mode, Amazon’s Zoox is positioning itself to become a key player in the rapidly evolving autonomous transportation sector.
Bd-Pratidin English/ARK
