SACRAMENTO, Calif. (March 25, 2016) — Zoox Inc., a relatively unknown startup with the goal of building fully autonomous vehicles, was granted permission by California to test self-driving cars on public roads in the state.
This marks the 12th company to receive such a permit. Others include Google Inc. parent Alphabet Inc., Ford Motor Co., Tesla Motors Inc. and Cruise Automation, which was acquired by General Motors Co. this month to help bolster the auto maker's efforts to develop self-driving vehicles.
Zoox aims to create self-driving cars for a ride-hailing service similar to those offered by Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., according to a report last year in the trade publication IEEE Spectrum.
Uber has been working on its own autonomous-vehicle project, following in the footsteps of Google and Apple Inc. The automotive industry is finding itself competing against fast-moving tech companies that are new to the world of cars and threatening to upend a century-old industry.
- For a spectrum.ieee.org story on Zoox's robo-taxi concept, click here.