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No steering wheel, no pedals, no problem. Zoox Pending U.S. government approval, Uber announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Uber to make its robotaxis available on the ride-hailing company’s app in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
multi-year partnership, Advertised by Zoox And Uber on Wednesday will enable Uber customers to get rides on Zoox’s robo-taxi in Vegas this summer and in Los Angeles in 2027. After the partnership launches, the app will match passengers with a robo-taxi on eligible trips, Uber said in a statement. Zoox will also offer rides on its robotaxis through its own app, so customers can use the Uber or Zoox app to ride in the vehicles.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called Zoox an “ideal partner” in a statement.
“The Zoox robotaxi is unlike any other vehicle on the planet, specially designed from the ground up to deliver an extraordinary experience,” Khosrowshahi said. “Zoox’s commitment to safety and its advanced self-driving technology make it an ideal partner. We’re thrilled to work together to introduce more riders to the future of mobility.”
Zoox, founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon in 2020, currently offers free rides Vegas and San Francisco During the service demo phase. The company said its robotaxis have traveled more than a million miles to more than 300,000 passengers.
Zoox is also conducting tests in six other cities — Seattle, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas — and announced earlier this week that Dallas and Phoenix are next. Currently only people in San Francisco and Las Vegas can get test flights through Zoox application.
“We are taking a thoughtful, incremental approach by starting small, learning quickly and scaling responsibly,” Zoox said in its announcement on Wednesday. “This partnership with Uber will reflect this approach, starting with a controlled deployment with the potential to scale while improving our processes, technology and customer experience.”
Watch this: This Robotaxi looks like a car like nothing you’ve ever seen before and drives like no other
No steering wheel
Zoox is a fully self-driving vehicle It can carry up to four passengers (PDF). It has no steering wheel, no accelerator or brake pedals, and is bi-directional, meaning it can move forward and backward by simply switching which end of the car is the front. There are touch screens and emergency call buttons. Zoox had an early lead Problems with irregular braking That caused injuries and accidents, but addressed the problem through software updates during the ensuing investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Abrar Al-Hiti from CNET Trip caught At Zoox in Las Vegas. She said she felt “strangely relieved as I watched the stream of cars, restaurant chains and desert landscapes pass through the windows.”
Before Zoox can start making money from robo-taxi rides, it must obtain an exemption from federal robotic vehicle safety standards. NHTSA is now accepting public comment on Zoox’s request for an exemption — you can Add a comment here Until April 10.
Zoox is seeking eight federal vehicle safety exemptions, including from rules requiring windshield wipers and windshield defrost systems, TechCrunch reported.
Zoox is offering free rides during the public testing phase in San Francisco and Las Vegas.
Waymo Currently it is the major player in the US robotaxi market, with a completely autonomous service 10 US cities. But many other companies are looking to it Stepping up their presence in autonomous driving This year, including Zoox, Tesla and Uber. This market expansion is in line with A Goldman Sachs forecasts More than 35,000 robotaxis will be operating in the United States in 2030, up from 1,500 currently. This will represent 8% of the ridesharing market, with traditional human-driven ridesharing making up the other 92%.
Uber has partnerships with 25 other robo-taxi services around the world, primarily Waymo — you can use the Uber app to get Waymo rides in Atlanta and Austin — and Chinese company Baidu, which will test self-driving rides in London this year.