- Zoox, Amazon’s autonomous taxi service, is officially offering rides in Las Vegas.
- The purpose-built, steering wheel-less electric pod can be hailed for free “on and around the strip” using a smartphone app.
- The vehicle has two opposing bench seats inside and sliding doors on both sides.
Amazon’s Zoox autonomous taxi service has officially started offering public rides, and its first market is Las Vegas, Nevada. This marks an important milestone for the robotaxi industry, as the odd-shaped driverless pod is now the world’s first purpose-built robotaxi that offers fully autonomous ride-hailing services.
According to Zoox, the service area will be “on and around the Strip,” with customers having access to free rides through the company’s smartphone app. Paid rides will become available after the company gets all the necessary regulatory approvals, which is expected to happen in the following months.
Photo by: Zoox
What makes Zoox’s service a little different from the rest, aside from the steering wheel-less vehicles, is the fact that pickups and drop-offs in Las Vegas happen at designated ride-hail zones.
In other words, you can’t just hail a Zoox from anywhere, and you can’t exit the robotaxi right in front of the place you need to be. The company partnered with several destinations, including Resorts Las Vegas, Topgolf and Area51, where Zoox concierges will help riders use the smartphone app and answer questions.
The app shows the robotaxi’s license plate number, as well as estimated pickup times, real-time arrival updates and post-ride summaries. There’s also a “Help” button on one of the screens inside the autonomous pod.
Zoox currently has a fleet of roughly 50 robotaxis, most of which are deployed in Las Vegas. More are on the way, though, as the Amazon-owned company opened its first production facility in the United States in Hayward, California, earlier this year. The 220,000 square feet facility is the first of its kind in America, and Zoox aims to build 10,000 robotaxis annually.
San Francisco is the next city on Zoox’s list, with the service set to launch in the coming months. Curious riders can join a waitlist to find out when the autonomous taxis will arrive in the Bay Area. Austin and Miami are set to follow after San Francisco.
Compared to Waymo and Tesla’s Robotaxi, Amazon’s Zoox purpose-built autonomous taxi doesn’t have pedals and a steering wheel. There’s just a pair of opposing bench seats, sliding doors on both sides, and a couple of screens. The electric pods use a comprehensive suite of sensors to navigate, including lidar, radar and cameras, similar to Waymo’s system but different from Tesla’s vision-only approach, which relies exclusively on cameras.
