Zoox has built dozens of custom-built electric robotaxis and is testing them in one or more "semi-private courses" in California, according to the company's co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson. "We have dozens of them -- not hundreds yet, but it's very far into the double digits, said Levinson, referring to the total number of robotaxis built and in testing. The disclosure, which came up in a wide-ranging interview with media, suggests that the Amazon subsidiary is ramping up in preparation to begin testing its electric robotaxis on public roads. Zoox currently tests Toyota Highlander vehicles equipped with its self-driving system in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Foster City, California, near its headquarters, and recently expanded testing to Seattle as well. Those vehicles all have human safety drivers behind the wheel. Zoox plans to launch commercially with its purpose-built autonomous vehicle, which is loaded with sensors, can drive bidrectionally, has four-wheel steering and is capable of transporting four people at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. The company unveiled the cube-like vehicle in December 2020, before largely disappearing from public view. It turns out this vehicle is being tested on open roads in campus-like settings. Levinson wouldn't disclose exactly where the robotaxis are, but said it was not a closed campus with only Zoox employees. "You can imagine, you know, campuses or research facilities," he said. "What I mean by open roads is that the people that we're interacting with, whether they're bicyclists, pedestrians, (other) vehicles, they're not other Zoox agents.

"Open Roads," which debuted at The Game Awards late last year, has been in development for the past two years and will release in 2021. Like Fullbright's previous games, "Open Roads" is a narrative-driven adventure that centers on relationships. You play as Tess, a teenage girl on a road trip with her single mom, Opal. After the death of Tess's grandmother, the mother and daughter rummage through grandma's belongings, finding hints of "deep-rooted family secrets" about burglaries and lost treasure near the Canadian border.

It is only a matter of time before driverless cars take us to work and our children to school, according to James Peng, CEO and co-founder of Pony.ai, a California-based self-driving car start-up. "If I have to give a number, I'll say probably in five years," Peng told CNBC's Deirdre Bosa at the East Tech West conference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, China. "We'll definitely see a wide adoption of autonomous driving vehicles -- fully autonomous driving vehicles -- on the open roads." That could happen in any part of the world, but Pony.ai has been focusing on the U.S. and China, where the start-up has been testing autonomous vehicles. It recently partnered with Hyundai to introduce an on-demand vehicle service for residents in Irvine, California, where passengers can share autonomous cabs using an app.

France could be the first country to have fully autonomous cars on the road next year. The Associated Press reported that French companies Delphi and Transdev will partner to create taxi and shuttle services that transport passengers without a driver. The testing will start with on-demand driverless vehicles in Normandy and a van service that will shuttle passengers between a train station and the campus of the University of Paris Saclay. The route between the campus and train station is aimed at addressing a "first mile-last mile" gap in public transportation, getting people from their final destinations and start points to public transit. The services will begin with humans on board to give instruction before the planned fully autonomous phase in 2018.

THE teams competing in DARPA's Grand Challenge (see article) have it easy. The driverless vehicles racing off-road in the Mojave desert merely have to avoid boulders, dunes and the occasional cactus. That is nothing compared with the hazards of the open road. Put those same autonomous vehicles on Interstate 15--the busy road that links Los Angeles and Las Vegas--and they would also have to contend with bleary-eyed weekenders, huge trucks and octogenarians puttering along in mobile homes. Even so, engineers and scientists at a handful of academic and industrial research centres are valiantly grappling with the problem of designing autonomous passenger vehicles, buses and trucks.