Sept 1 (Reuters) - 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 cities.
Zoox has been carrying passengers for free in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Austin and Miami as part of its testing program, before it started offering paid rides in Las Vegas in August.
Waymo already operates paid driverless services in multiple U.S. cities and is also expanding overseas. The company said last month it would begin testing in Munich ahead of a planned commercial launch in Germany toward the end of 2027.
(Reporting by Anzar Mehraj in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
