Zoox robotaxi hands-on: safe but lagging

A Zoox autonomous robotaxi in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024. Zoox has started testing its electric robotaxis in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. | Bloomberg via Getty Images; Photo by David Paul Morris

I’m standing outside a nondescript corporate office park in Las Vegas next to a box-shaped vehicle with no proper front or back. It’s got a set of sliding doors, no steering wheel, and touchpad controls. It’s bidirectional, meaning it can move in either direction without turning around. And to be completely frank, it looks more like an oversized toaster than an actual car. 

This is the second-generation Zoox robotaxi, a purpose-built autonomous shuttle that has been testing in and around Las Vegas for the last year and a half. Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, has been working on it for over a decade, and during this year’s CES, it finally let a few journalists take a ride.

So far, the only robotaxis operating on public roads in the US are run by Alphabet’s Waymo. Others have tried but tend to run out of money or get sidelined by traffic mishaps (or, in the case of Cruise, both). Unlike Waymo, Zoox’s robotaxi service isn’t open to the public. It says it will go live in Las Vegas in 2025, but hasn’t communicated how long the waitlist period will last. And as Waymo eyes new cities and new partnerships, Zoox is still trying to get out of beta mode. 

But it’s getting c …

Read the full story at The Verge.