Amazon.com's subsidiary Zoox has announced new service areas for testing its autonomous taxi service, marking the latest development in the race for dominance in the self-driving taxi sector. On Monday morning, Zoox revealed plans to extend its autonomous vehicle testing program to Dallas and Phoenix, bringing its operational footprint to 10 markets across the United States. This expansion represents one of the company's most ambitious geographic moves since its acquisition by Amazon.com for $1.3 billion in 2020.
Zoox will deploy a small fleet of modified Toyota Highlander SUVs equipped with full sensor suites, though these vehicles will initially operate with human safety drivers to conduct road mapping in Dallas and Phoenix before commencing full autonomous testing. The company selected these two cities due to their expansive street layouts and diverse weather conditions, which are intended to stress-test its self-driving technology.
By the end of last year, Zoox had surpassed one million miles of autonomous driving and served more than 300,000 passengers through operations in San Francisco and Las Vegas. The company currently offers free public rides in specific zones within these cities—areas surrounding the Las Vegas Strip and designated neighborhoods in San Francisco—with plans to begin commercial, fee-based services in these markets by 2026.
Zoox's latest expansion aligns with an industry-wide trend of scaling operations across the U.S. to compete for leadership in the autonomous vehicle space. Alphabet's Waymo remains the clear frontrunner in the American market, operating in six regions after adding Miami service in January. As of early 2026, Waymo completes 450,000 paid rides weekly and plans to expand to Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Washington, and Nashville. The company is also conducting tests in New York, Chicago, Charlotte, Boston, Tokyo, and London.
Tesla Motors has progressed more slowly in deploying its autonomous taxi service. The company launched its service in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area in mid-2025, but except for a small number of vehicles in Austin operating without safety drivers, Tesla's autonomous taxis continue to rely on human safety drivers. Nevertheless, Tesla has announced plans to expand into Nevada and Phoenix and recently began limited production of its Cybercab autonomous taxi.
Similar to the Cybercab, Zoox's vehicle is purpose-built for autonomous taxi service but features a more radical design. Zoox's autonomous taxi has no driver's seat or traditional controls, with passengers seated facing each other as in a train carriage. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted Zoox an exemption last year, permitting this vehicle model to operate on public roads and clearing a significant regulatory hurdle for future commercial deployment.
Additionally, Amazon.com's backing provides Zoox with a considerable advantage. Amazon.com's investment supported the construction of a new 220,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Zoox plans to produce up to 10,000 vehicles annually at full capacity. Beyond financial support, Amazon.com brings operational expertise to Zoox, including logistics proficiency, cloud infrastructure via Amazon Web Services, and potential integration with Amazon's delivery and transportation ecosystem.
Tesla Motors' vision-only approach—relying solely on cameras instead of the sensor suites used by Waymo and Zoox—theoretically offers greater scalability and lower per-vehicle costs, which has fostered optimism on Wall Street. However, Tesla has not yet secured regulatory approval for commercial autonomous services in regions like California, and its crash data submissions to NHTSA are currently under review.