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Amazon-owned Zoox is finally offering robo-taxi rides to the public, but it will be a long time—if ever—before its distinctive, toaster-shaped autonomous vehicle poses a serious threat to market leader Waymo or the elephant in the room, Tesla.
The start-up is offering free rides in Las Vegas starting today while it awaits regulatory approval to operate its paid ride-hailing service. It cleared a big hurdle in August, when federal regulators allowed the Foster City, Calif., company to deploy its four seaters even though they lack steering wheels and other features typically found on cars.
But Zoox has several more hurdles to overcome before it goes mainstream. One is building demand for its unique offering, whose two-bench interior makes it feel like a carpool van. With no driver’s seat, the vehicle’s sliding doors open to a roomy interior with wireless charging and touch screens displaying the trip’s progress at each seat.
To navigate rides, Zoox uses a combination of cameras, laser-based radar, and long-wave infrared sensors to give it a 360-degree view of the road. That is similar to Waymo’s approach but diverges from Tesla’s, which relies solely on cameras and artificial intelligence.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Zoox will be ramping up its service. Getting to scale takes time and a lot of money. Founded in 2014, Zoox got snapped up by Amazon for $1.3 billion back in 2020, according to Reuters. It hasn’t released additional funding information since then.
Meanwhile, at least one major competitor, General Motors’ money-losing Cruise, has come and gone after failing to overcome concerns about its safety following a horrific crash in San Francisco back in 2023.
By comparison, Alphabet and external investors have collectively invested more than $10 billion in Waymo, which is part of its Other Bets operating unit that lost $1.2 billion in the quarter ending in June.
A recently opened production facility in Hayward, Calif., marks Zoox’s first big first step in growing its reach. The size of three and a half football fields, the 200,000 sq. ft factory can assemble up to 10,000 robo-taxis a year, according to the company.
Zoox says its “purpose-built” robo-taxi will enable it to scale efficiently, but playing catch up will be tough. Rival Waymo says it has already completed over 10 million rides in five U.S. cities., including Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas. Meanwhile Tesla opened up its own robo-taxi service to the public in Austin earlier this month, operating over a 173 square-mile area.
For now, Zoox only has a few dozen of its vehicles on the streets, versus Waymo’s 1,500. Tesla likely has the edge here since its self-driving technology is cheaper to make than the systems used by Waymo and Zoox. Its small fleet of robo-taxis are all Model Ys for now, but Tesla’s futuristic-looking Cybercab is expected to start production next year.
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