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Amazon Team Targets Autonomous Vehicle Opportunities

Amazon.com is evaluating various business opportunities related to self-driving vehicles.

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Amazon.com is evaluating various business opportunities related to self-driving vehicles.

The effort is being led by a team created about a year ago, The Wall Street Journal reports. The group, which consists of about a dozen people, functions as an inhouse think tank to suggest ways the online retailer can best leverage autonomous vehicles, according to the newspaper.

Potential applications include autonomous trucks and drones that deliver products directly to consumers and self-driving forklifts that move and load goods in Amazon warehouses. Driverless cars also could be used to take goods the last few miles from a central depot to their final destination.

Such vehicles also could help facilitate same-day delivery of auto parts to aftermarket service providers, something Amazon has struggled with thus far. At this point, the company has no plans to build its own self-driving vehicles, analysts note.

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