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Zoox, after an acquisition by Amazon unveils it’s science fiction robotaxis

Despite being founded in 2014, and managing to raise over $800 million in venture capital, few people have heard of Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company named after the single celled organisms that live within coral reefs.

Zoox prepares sci-fi, bidirectional robotaxis in two US cities

Despite being founded in 2014, and managing to raise over $800 million in venture capital, few people have heard of Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company named after the single celled organisms that live within coral reefs. The company is competing against better known heavyweights like Waymo, Lyft and Uber, with the intention of creating an autonomous, driverless vehicle that can be booked through a ride hailing application on a user’s phone. Zoox aims to offer a zero carbon robo-taxi that can reduce congestion and carbon emissions within crowded cities. After an acquisition by Amazon in mid-2020, the company has unveiled its latest design.

Self-driving autonomous vehicles – with no humans at all

Zoox unveiled their fully autonomous electric ride-sharing vehicle in December 2020, and it looks like something out of a science fiction show. The vehicle is bi-directional, with four wheel drive and sliding doors on each side that can carry up to four passengers, sitting facing each other. Unlike retrofitted self-driving vehicles, the Zoox vehicle is built and designed to be a completely robotic taxi. There is no option for the passengers to interact with any controls – the pedals and steering wheel simply do not exist. This new, exciting, and potentially unnerving technology has some way to go before being publicly available but it certainly has a memorable look.

Robo-taxis are yet to be fully realized

As of January 2021, Zoox has been issued Autonomous Vehicle Driverless Testing Permits in Nevada, and alongside five other companies in California: Autox Technologies, Baidu, Cruise, Nuro, and Waymo. The vehicle that Zoox eventually brings to market will need to be at least SAE Level 4: No human interaction required. Despite the bold predictions that self-driving vehicles would be commonplace by mid-2020, currently no automaker has managed to achieve this level of safety in the real world. Progress is being made however, with the UK’s project Endeavour seeing carefully controlled real-world testing of SAE Level 4 vehicles, and various pilot schemes running in cities in the United States.

Acquisition by Amazon hinting at a package delivery future?

Amazon bought Zoox for an estimated cost of $1.3 billion in early August, 2020. Amazon’s vision for autonomous drone delivery is already well established, and there has been speculation of their intentions in buying out Zoox for last-mile road deliveries. At least initially, this acquisition represents an expansion of Amazon’s market interests, rather than something to integrate into their eCommerce business. Chief Technology Officer of Zoox, Jesse Levinson stated that “Amazon is very excited to enter a new market. That’s why they bought Zoox,” and CEO of Zoox, Aicha Evans has also said “Over time, we can probably get other things moving, but it’s very clear that for Amazon, this is a growth opportunity.” The door remains open for a future integration of the businesses, as the possibility for applying self-driving technology for last-mile parcel delivery is clearly visible.

Permission to offer rides, but not yet charge for rides

Under California’s pilot scheme, Zoox is allowed to offer their autonomous ride service to members of the public as part of their testing phase. The company is not yet allowed on all public roads, nor are they able to offer the rides commercially. It isn’t the first time the company has carried passengers, as in 2018 they offered autonomous rides to guests at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. While they have missed their initial goal of deploying commercial vehicles by the end of 2020, the company is clearly moving forward, and has promised to offer their services commercially in San Francisco and Las Vegas ‘soon,’ although an exact date is yet to be given.

Photos : cnbcfm.com




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