The robotaxi race is heating up in San Diego.
On the same day Waymo robotaxis opened to the public, another driverless rideshare competitor announced it would be rolling into San Diego.
Zoox SUVs will be on San Diego streets by the end of the month. The company, run by Amazon rather than Alphabet (Google’s parent company, and Waymo’s too) made the announcement Tuesday. It is also expanding into Houston.
“San Diego is a long-term focus for us,” said Zoox spokesperson Marisa Wiggam. “We already maintain a local office here and plan to build a local depot for vehicle charging and maintenance, creating new jobs in the area.”
The robotaxi ridehailing service started operating in San Francisco and Las Vegas in 2025. Waymo, on the other hand, operated in Phoenix for six years before expanding to other markets and finally arriving in San Diego.
Like Waymo before it, Zoox’s test fleet will have human safety drivers for the first few months while mapping the city. If Waymo’s initial path is any clue, their Ojai vehicles could be spotted all over a fair slice of coastal and central San Diego in the months ahead of their launch. Their initial service area includes the coast from Pacific Beach to Point Loma, along with Uptown, much of Mission Valley and downtown south to Barrio Logan.
Zoox taxis look much different than the test fleet. While the fleet entering San Diego is made up of traditional SUVs retrofitted with sensors and cameras, the taxis coming later are purpose-built for autonomous driving.
The toaster-shaped taxis contain no driving controls. Instead of traditional front-facing seats, Zoox has carriage-style rows facing each other and sliding glass doors to get inside.
Amazon touts these features, saying their vehicles cater to riders, not drivers.
For taxi and rideshare drivers, there is concern that autonomous vehicles will take away jobs even as San Diego becomes more expensive than ever. For that reason, city Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera fought against their introduction in San Diego and got MTS to oppose them.
He pledged that the fight is not over, even after the California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo for San Diego.
On a small scale of study, driverless cars are safer than human drivers, and a group of doctors are onboard too. Experts with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, though, have noted that “the present data collection system isn’t good enough to allow continuous monitoring of a large-scale expansion.”
