Say hello to the tiny self-driving Robo-taxi by Zoox

KUALA LUMPUR: With a vision of a safer, cleaner, and more enjoyable future for all, Amazon‘s electric vehicle startup named Zoox is on a mission to reinvent personal transportation. Following this, the company has finally revealed its first autonomous taxi after six years of prototyping and secrecy. Touted as a vehicle "built for riders, not drivers,” the company used a combination of robotics vehicle design, artificial intelligence, and sustainable energy to create this.

In place of conventional controls, conventional seating layout, and even conventional notion of a front and back, the all-electric box on wheels is a driverless carriage that can carry as many as four passengers seated face-to-face. Specially designed for dense and urban environments, it gets bidirectional driving capabilities as well as four-wheel steering, which allows maneuvering through tight urban spaces and changing directions without the need to reverse.

With a motor at each end, Zoox’s Robotaxi can attain speeds up to 75 mph. It is powered by two battery packs, one under each row, which provide around 16 hours of running time on a single charge. This means it can drive day and night before recharging.

“Revealing our functioning and driving vehicle is an exciting milestone in our company’s history and marks an important step on our journey towards deploying an autonomous ride-hailing service,” said Aicha Evans, Zoox Chief Executive Officer. 

“We are transforming the rider experience to provide superior mobility-as-a-service for cities. And as we see the alarming statistics around carbon emissions and traffic accidents, it’s more important than ever that we build a sustainable, safe solution that allows riders to get from point A to point B.”

With a length of 3.63 meters, the tiny box slots between the Origin Robotaxi from Cruise, owned by General Motors, and the delivery-focused Robo made by Nuro.

In terms of safety, the company claims that it is packed with 100 new safety innovations that are not available in conventional vehicles. These include:

• A novel airbag system exclusively for bi-directional vehicles and carriage seating, which envelops all passengers. 
• Unique sensor architecture comprising cameras, radar, and LIDAR for an unrivaled 270-degree view from all corners. This is said to virtually eliminate blind spots and can track other moving objects in its immediate vicinity, which include pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users.

Acquired by Amazon in 2020, Zoox was originally founded in 2014. It is currently testing the Robo-taxi in the United States. To commercialize the technology, the company plans to launch an app-based ride-hailing service.

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