Zoox, Inc. is a subsidiary of

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

developing

autonomous vehicles Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle (car, aircraft, watercraft, or otherwise).Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Lanzon, A.,Group Coordinated Control o ...

that provide Mobility-as-a-Service. It is headquartered in

Foster City, California Foster City is a city located in San Mateo County, California. The 2020 census put the population at 33,805, an increase of more than 10% over the 2010 census figure of 30,567. Foster City is sometimes considered to be part of Silicon Valley ...

and has offices of operations in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

and

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. Zoox sits in the Amazon Devices & Services organization alongside other Amazon units like

Amazon Lab126 Amazon Lab126 (sometimes known as Lab126) is an American research and development and computer hardware company owned by Amazon.com. It was founded in 2004 by Gregg Zehr, previously Vice President of Hardware Engineering at Palm, and is based in ...

Amazon Alexa Amazon Alexa, also known simply as Alexa, is a virtual assistant technology largely based on a Polish speech synthesiser named Ivona, bought by Amazon in 2013. It was first used in the Amazon Echo smart speaker and the Echo Dot, Echo Studio ...

, and

Kuiper Systems Kuiper Systems LLC is a subsidiary of Amazon that was set up in 2019 to deploy a large broadband satellite internet constellation to provide broadband internet connectivity. The deployment is also referred to by its project name "Project Kuipe ...

History

Zoox was founded in 2014 by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n artist-designer Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson, son of

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

chairman Arthur D. Levinson, who was developing self-driving technology at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. The name "Zoox" is a reference to

Zooxanthellae Zooxanthellae is a colloquial term for single-celled dinoflagellates that are able to live in symbiosis with diverse marine invertebrates including demosponges, corals, jellyfish, and nudibranchs. Most known zooxanthellae are in the genus ''S ...

, a marine organism that, like the Zoox robo-taxi, depends on renewable energy and is able to maintain a symbiotic relationship with organisms in its surrounding habitat. In January 2019, Zoox appointed a new CEO, Aicha Evans, who was previously the

Chief Strategy Officer A chief strategy officer (CSO) is an executive that usually reports to the CEO and has primary responsibility for strategy formulation and management, including developing the corporate vision and strategy, overseeing strategic planning, and leading ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

. On June 26, 2020,

and Zoox signed a definitive merger agreement, under which Amazon acquired Zoox as a wholly-owned subsidiary for over $1.2 billion. As is the case with other Amazon subsidiaries like

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide d ...

, Zoox has no independent board of directors, but operates as a separate legal entity with its own governance structure. Zoox sits within the Amazon Devices & Services organization with Evans reporting into Amazon Senior Vice President, Dave Limp.

Development and operations

Zoox is creating an entirely new autonomous vehicle targeted at the

robo-taxi A robotaxi, also known as robo-raxi, self-driving taxi or driverless taxi, is an autonomous car (SAE automation level 4 or 5) operated for a ridesharing company. Some studies have hypothesized that robotaxis operated in an autonomous mobility on ...

market. The company's approach is centered around the fact that a retrofitted vehicle is not optimized for autonomy. Zoox has applied the latest techniques in automotive, robotics and renewable energy to build a symmetrical, bi-directional battery-electric vehicle that solves for the unique challenges of autonomous mobility. The company has used retrofitted

Toyota Highlander The Toyota Highlander, also known as the , is a mid-size crossover SUV with three-row seating produced by Toyota since 2000. Announced in April 2000 at the New York International Auto Show and arriving in late 2000 in Japan and January 2001 in ...

s with their self-driving system in final preparation for their commercial vehicle reveal in December 2020. As of July 2018 test driving was taking place in both

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

and North Beach districts, as well as

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

Progress and competition

In December 2018, Zoox became the first company to gain approval for providing self-driving transport services to the public in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. By July 2018, according to

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...

, Zoox had raised $800 million in venture capital, at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth ...

is an investor in the company. In September 2020, Zoox became the fourth company in the State of California to receive permit to test driverless automobiles on public roads. On December 14, 2020, Zoox showcased a fully autonomous, all-electric, purpose-built vehicle that is capable of driving up to 75 mph. On March 20, 2019,

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...

filed a lawsuit against Zoox and several now-former Tesla employees (who left Tesla for employment at Zoox) alleging theft of Tesla's proprietary information and trade secrets related to warehousing, shipping, and logistics in late 2018 and early 2019. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed sum in April 2020 where Zoox "acknowledged that certain of its new hires from Tesla were in possession of Tesla documents pertaining to shipping, receiving, and warehouse procedures when they joined Zoox's logistics team". Zoox autonomous vehicle at CVPR 2022

In July 2022, Zoox became the first purpose-built, fully autonomous, all-electric passenger vehicle that was certified to the existing

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are U.S. federal vehicle regulations specifying design, construction, performance, and durability requirements for motor vehicles and regulated automobile safety-related components, systems, and ...

(FMVSS) without the need for regulatory changes or exemption requests.

References

External links

* {{Amazon, state=collapsed Self-driving car companies Companies based in Foster City, California Transportation companies based in California 2014 establishments in California American companies established in 2014 Transport companies established in 2014 2020 mergers and acquisitions Amazon (company) acquisitions