I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around. They seem to have a mix of robotaxis (like the ones pictured) and decked out Toyota Highlanders that look like Waymos but not as well "packaged", though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel.
Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only operate in/around the strip). On the one hand all they really have to navigate is the strip which is just one giant straight road. But on the other hand most casinos on the strip have their entrances in the back and once you get off the strip and try to go up to one of these casinos it's a maze of roads. But that only speaks to the technical hurdles, I'm sure a big part of the calculus is that Vegas is very much a "novelty" kind of place and folks are much more likely to give it a shot when there.
Certain road hazards are a much bigger issue on the strip than most roads. Pedestrians frequently walk into traffic, and cars regularly stop illegally and swerve in front of other vehicles. It looks like the initial service area is tiny but if Zoox handles those cases well it's a solid technical achievement and bodes well for expansion.
Vegas is also good for many other reasons: year round good weather, lots of tourists in need of taxi services, too hot to walk, too drunk to drive, etc…
>> though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel.
The robotaxis have a steering wheel? I thought they had campfire seating with 2 backward facing seats.
The front-to-back symmetry is interesting. It may cause some confusion for other drivers, in some limited circumstances, when they can't tell which way the vehicle is facing.
It appears, based on my study of the footage on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRW8bfy4kE, that it could possibly switch which side is the front and the back by just changing the color of the lights. With RGB LEDs that would be pretty easy to do. But my question is, when would that be useful?
It would be neat that it could pull into a driveway and then leave in "reverse", but that doesn't seem like it'd come up that often for a robotaxi.
The back wheels look like they can steer. That's useful for parking in tight spaces.
Yay! A tiny minuscule bit of my code is riding on these. While I no longer work there, I am absolutely thrilled at this milestone
1. Congratulations everyone! Yay!
2. I absolutely recommend Zoox as a great place to work. Believes me, I’ve sampled many jobs, Zoox is up there with Google in terms of what the experience feels like in my experience.
These little front-back symmetric buses (as well as engineering-outfitted minivans) are pretty common in the mission in SF as well. I see them all the time in a very small (four or so blocks around 16th and folsom where my pottery studio is) area, but I think they're all still just test driving.
As a waymo user, I'm looking forward to a little more competition in the market. I quite like waymo, but driving price down woudl be great.
The pricing wave Waymo went through is interesting.
After the limited access you’d often find them offering same or cheaper rides than Uber/Lyft. People tried them and realized they arrive without the whiplash you get from a start/stop Tesla uber in SF, no smells, no weird interactions. Every person we talked to prefers the Waymo even with its quirks and getting stuck sometimes.
Now waymo is 3x uber every time I check it.
I’ve gotten rides across the city for $6 on Uber, not sure what driver is making any money at that rate. Per hour you’re much better off working at In and out.
I poked around on their site and read the press releases; Zoox seems to be limited to only pickups and dropoffs at a few set locations.
> Simply open the Zoox app to take a ride from several destinations on and around the Strip.
This puts it dramatically behind Waymo where I can walk out on any block in the coverage area and tell it to take me to any other block in the coverage area, not to mention Uber and Lyft.
I'm sure Zoox can improve this, but right now it resembles a self-driving shuttle more than a taxi service.
A self-driving individual shuttle with preset stops that can integrate into existing roadways is a huge step forward and would be very useful in many urban locations.
I disagree wholeheartedly. I think the most useful thing about robotaxis is that you can count on them to pay attention and react within a given timeframe and that speed limits will either be expanded greatly, eliminated or calculated as a function of the capabilities of the individual hardware in question rather than our best guess as to how an average person would probably react. I'm looking forward to driverless cars careening about at 200+ mph because they can actively communicate and coordinate with traffic around them in order to do so safely.
no thanks, I don't fancy dodging 120mph robots when I'm crossing the road, or breathing in the extra pollution that this would create (even if its an EV!)
I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around, we actually got stuck behind one trying to make a right turn onto LV Boulevard (the strip) and seemed to be far to cautious.
What's interesting is that about 80% Tesla's entire valuation is FSD and Optimus, and the underlying assumption with FSD is that it'll magically turn on for all Tesla's in a day and they'll have a monopoly and extract all the profit needed for that valuation. Apart from any comparisons with Waymo, I suspect self-driving will broadly follow other AI tech, where we'll see a proliferation of competitive self-driving tech on the heels of first movers. Local protectionism will also probably play a big role in this.
I would bet against the imminent commodification of autonomous vehicle technology. Way too early. No consensus on the technology approach.
Here's a speculative but plausible take: Zoox and Waymo are both products of cloud computing and data gathering giants. Maybe that's the important factor.
I think self-driving targets a problem that doesn't really exist. The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task, it's simply the amount of time spent in a car, which FSD doesn't address.
I was just there last weekend and saw them everywhere. My buddy asked about it and I'd never heard of the company before. They're definitely distinctive.
Seems like robotaxis are getting ready for a big expansion, I see Waymos all over Orlando even though they don't offer service here.
Congrats to the team! It's no small feat to launch to the public in this space, and from the amount of testing I've seen Zoox doing it certainly seems like they've put in the work. Best of luck!
I like these futuristic little carriages. They're certainly useful in some scenarios but I hope to see something similar but obviouly bigger for public trasnportation.
“From immersive shows and world-class dining to major sporting events and luxury shopping, there is something special for everyone.” – an interesting way to describe Las Vegas.
I feel like robotaxis are just electric bikes and scooters of 2025. I very well could be wrong (I think I am) but that's the vibes I'm getting from the robotaxis industry right now.
In the US, there's a good chance that AVs will become dominant in 10 years time. In China, it's all but guaranteed.
Apollo One has already launched service in the UAE and is expected to launch in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of the year. They're also expected to start testing in several European countries by the end of the year. The question I have at this point is, will only China benefit from launching this new global industry, or will the US manage to also be competitive on a global scale?
I now see their development vehicles all over the valley, whereas previously if I was near the Strip that's the only region I would see them in.
This valley has congestion issues pretty much all day everywhere, plus a traffic light management protocol that results in very long light cycles.
Many of us when coming to a red light where there are multiple lanes and traffic is light, will make a point to not stop in the right lane when there is no right turn only lane. This is so people who are making a right turn can make a right on red instead of waiting for a green.
Zoox does not do this.
Sometimes there is not quite enough space between vehicles to get into a lane while cars are stopped at a light, such as getting into a left turn lane. Often, some light taps on the horn (or even just sitting with the turn signal) will result in drivers pushing up tight to let you into the left turn lane.
Zoox does not do this.
Zoox will change lanes many times for no apparent reason, making drivers think it is turning right or left at the next intersection, but it does not turn.
As best I can tell, Zoox has issues with pedestrians. I think that the operator (in the test vehicle) takes over when pedestrians are present, because so far I always see them operating the steering wheel when there are pedestrians.
As a driver, I don't like any of the automated drivers because I feel there is a thing that can do serious damage and nobody is accountable. These are all owned by corporations whose sole accountability will be financial, nothing more, while drivers are held to both financial a punitive accountability.
Further, these are all mega-conglomerates for whom there is no real regard for the destruction their property causes. They are politically connected, so will never lose their operating license. The are funded by the largest investors mankind has ever known. Nobody in these organizations has any respect for morals or ethics, instead fostering a system that promotes psychopaths.
I don't want them here. I haven't spoken to anyone who lives here that wants them here.
Waymo has been a good actor in every way I can think of so far. They're transparent, their expansion is cautiously paced, and their safety record exceeds that of human drivers. I'm not sure what more we could ask for. Tesla on the other hand seems determined to put cars on the road ASAP and just hope for the best, but local regulatory hurdles seem to have stopped them for the most part. Zoox, from what I can tell, is taking the Waymo approach.
If you're trying to imply Vegas is
and easy place to drive.. Well I suggest trying it. It's a nightmare of 6-8 lane mega streets , multi tier traffic junctions, and high seed limits with poor signage and markings.
Zoox is a subsidiary Amazon since 2019, if that's what you mean. If you mean software/hardware - they are full stack, i.e. they didn't buy this as prebuilt from say Waymo and slap a Zoox sticker on it.
Hopefully some genius will figure out a way of joining lots of these together into a 'gigapod'. That might have enough capacity to actually work at city scale.
Putting aside their merit as urban transport, robotaxis can completely solve transportation in less dense areas, something no train can accomplish. It will be particularly valuable to the aging populations in a lot of small towns and rural areas.
I am getting so unbelievably tired of this smug comment. It reeks of reddit spam.
We all know trains would be nice. Unless you have some plan to rework our government into something that will allow for innovation here, then I prefer to see progress, even if it's not ideal.
The fact that there isn't a rail line from the airport to the strip is wild. It would simplify travel for tourists dramatically, and get a lot of hotel shuttles and taxis off the street. There's a reason why even cities with bad public transit usually have a line to the airport, and it's wild that Las Vegas doesn't have one.
I'd argue that tourists are the main untapped market in terms of transportation on the strip. Workers and residents might already be familiar with the public transport that exists, but most visitors would probably rather get a private car at the exact time they need it (going to the exact place they want to go) rather than figure out the bus schedule. That's proven by the fact that lots of people grab Ubers/similar to get around there.
Of all the places to try a gimmick, Vegas is the right place.
Better than a tax that will take you on long route to your destination to get more money out of you. I don’t know how many times that has happened to me in Vegas. Had one drive downtown when I was going from Aria to Mandalay.
You managed to come off as condescending, smug and a zealot in one sentence. Bravo. I imagine this stems from not meeting strong town criteria because you aren't forced to share a seat with a stranger or some similar nonsense
_fat_santa|5 months ago
Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only operate in/around the strip). On the one hand all they really have to navigate is the strip which is just one giant straight road. But on the other hand most casinos on the strip have their entrances in the back and once you get off the strip and try to go up to one of these casinos it's a maze of roads. But that only speaks to the technical hurdles, I'm sure a big part of the calculus is that Vegas is very much a "novelty" kind of place and folks are much more likely to give it a shot when there.
rurp|5 months ago
amenghra|5 months ago
krschultz|5 months ago
schmidtleonard|5 months ago
AnimalMuppet|5 months ago
phkahler|5 months ago
The robotaxis have a steering wheel? I thought they had campfire seating with 2 backward facing seats.
jewel|5 months ago
It appears, based on my study of the footage on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRW8bfy4kE, that it could possibly switch which side is the front and the back by just changing the color of the lights. With RGB LEDs that would be pretty easy to do. But my question is, when would that be useful?
It would be neat that it could pull into a driveway and then leave in "reverse", but that doesn't seem like it'd come up that often for a robotaxi.
The back wheels look like they can steer. That's useful for parking in tight spaces.
wmf|5 months ago
jerlam|5 months ago
dilippkumar|5 months ago
1. Congratulations everyone! Yay!
2. I absolutely recommend Zoox as a great place to work. Believes me, I’ve sampled many jobs, Zoox is up there with Google in terms of what the experience feels like in my experience.
3. Yay again!
pfooti|5 months ago
As a waymo user, I'm looking forward to a little more competition in the market. I quite like waymo, but driving price down woudl be great.
culopatin|5 months ago
modeless|5 months ago
jerlam|5 months ago
> Simply open the Zoox app to take a ride from several destinations on and around the Strip.
This puts it dramatically behind Waymo where I can walk out on any block in the coverage area and tell it to take me to any other block in the coverage area, not to mention Uber and Lyft.
I'm sure Zoox can improve this, but right now it resembles a self-driving shuttle more than a taxi service.
SpaceNoodled|5 months ago
shermantanktop|5 months ago
maelito|5 months ago
What's considered normal for humans, driving higher than the speed limits, will not for automatic cars.
whazor|5 months ago
A robotaxi doesn’t care where it can or can’t drive. It just follows graph search and speed limits.
That means we can design cities around how we want them to look, instead of bending everything around today’s messy car infrastructure.
ratelimitsteve|5 months ago
echelon|5 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwc1XIOFME
RandallBrown|5 months ago
techterrier|5 months ago
orionsbelt|5 months ago
oooyay|5 months ago
Announcement: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation/zoox-headquarter...
_fat_santa|5 months ago
sxp|5 months ago
adrr|5 months ago
martythemaniak|5 months ago
Zigurd|5 months ago
Here's a speculative but plausible take: Zoox and Waymo are both products of cloud computing and data gathering giants. Maybe that's the important factor.
tim333|5 months ago
PhunkyPhil|5 months ago
speed_spread|5 months ago
- get lost
- be late
- collide with a moving car
- collide with stationary object
- run over a pedestrian (bonus for multiple!)
tim333|5 months ago
ricree|5 months ago
Although from the article, it sounds like this might not be servicing a wide enough area to win the bet even if the time was extended a couple years.
dingnuts|5 months ago
1 it's not fully autonomous, there's a remote operator
2 not a wide enough service area as defined in the bet
3 it's a pilot program, also excluded in the bet
4 it's also a year late and the bet is very much still lost
lol but we're going to have self driving cars by 2015 guys!
CSMastermind|5 months ago
Seems like robotaxis are getting ready for a big expansion, I see Waymos all over Orlando even though they don't offer service here.
tracker1|5 months ago
nharada|5 months ago
tartoran|5 months ago
mosdl|5 months ago
Mistletoe|5 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yueCu8z7l4g
macleginn|5 months ago
elpakal|5 months ago
Animats|5 months ago
stevage|5 months ago
sgnelson|5 months ago
dewitt|5 months ago
Ubiquitous, and life changing for the millions of people who use them daily?
standardUser|5 months ago
Apollo One has already launched service in the UAE and is expected to launch in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of the year. They're also expected to start testing in several European countries by the end of the year. The question I have at this point is, will only China benefit from launching this new global industry, or will the US manage to also be competitive on a global scale?
JumpCrisscross|5 months ago
…what does this mean? Are vibes another way of saying you feel like it without evidence?
stevage|5 months ago
paulnpace|5 months ago
This valley has congestion issues pretty much all day everywhere, plus a traffic light management protocol that results in very long light cycles.
Many of us when coming to a red light where there are multiple lanes and traffic is light, will make a point to not stop in the right lane when there is no right turn only lane. This is so people who are making a right turn can make a right on red instead of waiting for a green.
Zoox does not do this.
Sometimes there is not quite enough space between vehicles to get into a lane while cars are stopped at a light, such as getting into a left turn lane. Often, some light taps on the horn (or even just sitting with the turn signal) will result in drivers pushing up tight to let you into the left turn lane.
Zoox does not do this.
Zoox will change lanes many times for no apparent reason, making drivers think it is turning right or left at the next intersection, but it does not turn.
As best I can tell, Zoox has issues with pedestrians. I think that the operator (in the test vehicle) takes over when pedestrians are present, because so far I always see them operating the steering wheel when there are pedestrians.
As a driver, I don't like any of the automated drivers because I feel there is a thing that can do serious damage and nobody is accountable. These are all owned by corporations whose sole accountability will be financial, nothing more, while drivers are held to both financial a punitive accountability.
Further, these are all mega-conglomerates for whom there is no real regard for the destruction their property causes. They are politically connected, so will never lose their operating license. The are funded by the largest investors mankind has ever known. Nobody in these organizations has any respect for morals or ethics, instead fostering a system that promotes psychopaths.
I don't want them here. I haven't spoken to anyone who lives here that wants them here.
standardUser|5 months ago
octernion|5 months ago
[deleted]
cedws|5 months ago
SpaceNoodled|5 months ago
micromacrofoot|5 months ago
fyrn_|5 months ago
GuinansEyebrows|5 months ago
tech_ken|5 months ago
slt2021|5 months ago
AtlasBarfed|5 months ago
Utterly disturbing announcements and rollouts like this aren't prominently linked with comprehensive testing videos.
"We're a tech company, just trust us"
The only thing I like about this is the potential to make Tesla look bad.
SpaceNoodled|5 months ago
https://zoox.com/journal/crash-testing
ivape|5 months ago
zamadatix|5 months ago
recursive|5 months ago
oxqbldpxo|5 months ago
ugh123|5 months ago
giancarlostoro|5 months ago
mensetmanusman|5 months ago
techterrier|5 months ago
Osyris|5 months ago
signatoremo|5 months ago
I already commute by train. I’d like to have something more flexible.
PhunkyPhil|5 months ago
https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/uberx-share/
Convergent Evolution happening in realtime- it's almost as if community pooled forms of transportation are the most efficient...
standardUser|5 months ago
mensetmanusman|5 months ago
leetharris|5 months ago
We all know trains would be nice. Unless you have some plan to rework our government into something that will allow for innovation here, then I prefer to see progress, even if it's not ideal.
barbazoo|5 months ago
ARandumGuy|5 months ago
etskinner|5 months ago
Of all the places to try a gimmick, Vegas is the right place.
yunyu|5 months ago
oceanplexian|5 months ago
Yes, that's why they call it the Las Vegas strip. It is an entire city literally designed for tourists.
adrr|5 months ago
1234letshaveatw|5 months ago
skybrian|5 months ago