Amazon's Zoox, Alphabet's Waymo expand robotaxi services to more US cities

Sept 1 : Amazon's Zoox and Alphabet's Waymo on Tuesday separately announced expansions of their driverless ride-hailing operations into new U.S. cities, weeks after Zoox started paid services.Zoox said it would begin testing in Houston and San Diego, bringing its presence to 12 U.S. locations. It will initially use retrofitted test vehicles for manual mapping and testing before deploying its purpose-built driverless robotaxis.Its commercial launch has intensified competition with Waymo and Tesla as companies race to scale autonomous ride-hailing in the U.S.Waymo, meanwhile, said it would begin welcoming its first public riders in Denver, San Diego and Tampa, bringing its fully autonomous ride service to 14 cities. The company said it would gradually expand access to riders in the three cit