Amazon’s Zoox Is Gearing Up to Deploy Steering Wheel-less Robotaxis on Public Roads

Robotaxis are front of mind for tech companies as they race to get ahead in the autonomous vehicle market. Elon Musk is expected to unveil his plans for a Tesla (TSLA) robotaxi later this year. At the same time, Alphabet (GOOGL)’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise have launched commercial robotaxi services in cities like San Francisco. Amazon (AMZN), too, has bet big on robotaxis with its subsidiary Zoox. “We think that the purpose-built robotaxi is the best opportunity for safety and rider experiences,” said Zoox CEO Aicha Evans while speaking at Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2024 on July 16.

Zoox, acquired by Amazon in 2020 for around $1.2 billion, is currently testing its driverless vehicles across San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle, with plans to expand its test fleet to Miami and Austin. Unlike its competitors Waymo and Cruise, Zoox has yet to commercialize its robotaxis. “We’ll start the journey at the end of the year or the beginning of next year,” said Evans.

While Evans is confident in the safety of robotaxis, she emphasized the need to proceed with caution. “Robotaxis deployed on public roads are safer than human drivers,” according to Evans—but only when operating within the designated areas they are programmed for. “They are not ubiquitously safer than human drivers everywhere,” she added.

While around 43,000 car fatalities occur in the U.S. annually, Evans noted that 100 million miles are driven per each fatality. “That’s an incredible bar to meet,” she said, adding that robotaxi companies “have to make sure that the unpredictable is something you can handle.”

How does Zoox stand out in the robotaxi race?

Unlike rival companies, which typically modify existing cars to behave autonomously, Zoox makes a square-shaped vehicle with no steering wheels or pedals. “We think that when it comes to rider experiences, when it comes to safety, when it comes to operational costs and the path to profitability, our approach is better—we’re not saying anybody else is bad,” said Evans.

This design also means that humans are not able to take over the vehicle manually in case something goes wrong. Suppose one of its autonomous taxis needs help. In that case, it calls Zoox’s TeleGuidance operators for instructions, said Evans, adding that “if you have to count manual interventions, this is not a robotaxi.” A decrease in the need for human intervention is critical to Zoox’s mission. “Your ratio of folks that are helping the robotaxis has to be good. Otherwise, you didn’t really solve anything from an economic standpoint,” she added.

While Zoox is prepared to take on elements like sun, rain and fog across the U.S., it could be more confident in dealing with winter conditions. Since its robotaxis operate on a mappings system, differences in snowfall or snow plowing can cause confusion regarding the visibility of roads, according to Evans. Snow, which is a barrier to its expansion in cities like New York City, is something the company plans to tackle in the next five to ten years alongside a larger presence on highways, she said.

Zoox hopes robotaxis will become a normalized mode of transportation—one that increases safety and can help Americans cut down on personal car ownership. More than 90 percent of U.S. households have a car, while nearly 37 percent have two and almost 22 percent have three, according to U.S. census data. “This is the United States of America—it was built on automotives, so we’re not thinking it’s going to be zero cars,” said Evans. “But we’re hoping to start convincing some of us to not have 2.3 cars. Maybe have one, one point something.”