Autonomous vehicle development company Zoox, which Amazon acquired in June 2020, announced testing on the roads of Amazon’s hometown of Seattle. Jux is already conducting tests in San Francisco and Las Vegas.
The vehicle being tested in Seattle is a Joux test car with sensors installed on a Toyota Kruger. In Seattle, Joux Automated Driving is Level 3, where the system performs all driving tasks under certain conditions, including highways. Although the traffic in Seattle, a metropolis, is not small, drivers do not touch the steering wheel at all.
The purpose of the Seattle test is to drive in bad weather. In case of automatic driving, bad weather such as rain or fog may block the camera and the vehicle sensors such as the rider, and the recognition performance of road signs and road markings may be extremely poor. Seattle is a rainy area, so it is a good place to assume bad weather driving.
A calm sea doesn’t make for a seasoned sailor, Juks said. The same principle applies to its technology, and the challenge in Seattle will improve its software stack and lead to vehicle improvements. Related information can be found here.