Amazon-owned self-driving car startup Zoox shows off its pod vehicle
Zoox wants this robotaxi to be the face of the future.
It's not much outside, but pretty nice inside.
Another day, another startup promising to transform mobility with a new pod car. Today, it's Zoox, the Amazon-owned self-driving startup. On Monday, the company revealed the latest fruits of its labors with this little dude, a robotaxi that measures just under 12 feet long and packs a 133 kilowatt-hour battery pack good for 16 hours of driving.
The finer details remain undisclosed, but Zoox says the vehicle packs a self-driving platform that's entirely focused on safety and maneuverability in urban environments. Let's start with safety. According to Zoox, there are more than 100 new safety innovations onboard that range from passive to active. On the passive front, occupants receive protection from a new airbag system that "envelopes" riders in the event of a crash. With four seats inside, the startup said its new airbag system provides "five-star safety" for each person.
But this is supposed to be a self-driving car, and autonomous cars need to perceive the world around them. Covering those bases is a sensor architecture made up of cameras, radar and lidar to give the Zoox robotaxi a 270-degree field of vision at each corner of the car. Its engineers worked to remove digital "blind spots" for autonomous cars with the architecture, and their creation should be able to track movement around the entire vehicle.
As for maneuverability, the robotaxi includes bidirectional driving capabilities and four-wheel steering, which is supposed to make the car incredibly nimble on city streets. As such, the car won't need to put it in reverse, since it can simply change its direction without going backwards. Neat. Outside, Zoox included visible and audio notifications meant to communicate with us humans. Lights and sounds signal the car's next move, or tell a rider it's ready for pickup before the bus-style doors slide open.
It's kinda fancy in there.
Inside, there's room for four passengers sitting face to face on "carriage-style" seats. Without a steering wheel or other controls, Zoox rethought the typical interior. There's a wireless phone charging space and a screen built into each side of the seat that provides information on a rider's trip and the ability to change music or even the air fragrance. There's even a Rolls-Royce-looking starliner.
Where the Zoox robotaxi actually pops up first, we don't yet know. The company plans to continue testing in Las Vegas, San Francisco and Foster City, California, so perhaps the cutesy pod will deploy in the near future. With Amazon's abundant cash, anything is possible.
