{"id":424173,"date":"2026-09-02T17:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/424173\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T17:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:50:12","slug":"amazons-zoox-is-bringing-more-driverless-cars-to-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/424173\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon’s Zoox is bringing more driverless cars to Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company will start manually mapping the city using its retrofitted test fleet before progressing to autonomous testing. Once mapping and initial testing are complete, Zoox plans to deploy its driverless robotaxis<\/a>, laying the groundwork for a future ride-hailing service<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Amazon subsidiary referred to Houston as a “rigorous test” of the company’s technology, spanning major cultural, commercial and transit hubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Houston is our most sprawling market to date,” the company wrote in the release. “Driving here means navigating complex service-road networks, unique merging scenarios, and challenging environmental conditions, \u00a0including severe heat, heavy rain, and urban flooding.”<\/p>\n

Zoox’s modified Toyota Highlander SUVs, equipped with safety drivers, will begin operating in Rice Village<\/a>, the Texas Medical Center, the Galleria area, Memorial Park, downtown, midtown and the Hyde Park<\/a> area of Montrose, according to the Houston Business Journal.<\/a> After testing is complete, the company will bring its carriage-style boxy robotaxi to the Houston market, first serving Zoox employees, family and friends in Houston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houston is one of two new markets announced by Zoox. The company also announced an entrance into San Diego, bringing the company’s U.S. footprint to 12 locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zoox operates in two other major Texas cities: Austin and Dallas.<\/p>\n

The company launched operations in Austin in 2024 and expanded to Dallas earlier this year.\u00a0Zoox says public rides in Austin are “coming soon,” with riders able to join a waitlist for launch updates. In Dallas, the company said earlier this year it was testing up to 12 vehicles, according to NBC DFW.<\/a><\/p>\n

Zoox has registered a total of 44 autonomous vehicles in the state, according to Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker. Of those vehicles, 39 are Toyota Highlander SUVs and five are Zoox robotaxis.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company will start manually mapping the city using its retrofitted test fleet before progressing to autonomous testing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-424173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronnews","tag-chronstaff","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}