What Is Zoox?

Hailing a ride in a fully autonomous vehicle is no longer just a futuristic concept — it’s an emerging business that some of the biggest names in tech are betting on. While other robotaxi companies have either retrofitted or manufactured cars in the style of a sedan or a minivan, Zoox has reimagined conventional design paradigms, creating a vehicle that is purpose-built for the passenger instead of the driver.

Without a steering wheel, pedals or even a driver’s seat, Zoox’s boxy, “carriage-style” vehicle allows passengers to face each other in a spacious cabin, entering and exiting through subway-style doors that automatically open onto the safest side of the street. Its symmetrical design makes its front side indistinguishable from its rear, and it’s bidirectional, meaning it can travel just as fast going forward as it can in reverse. 

But designing a self-driving robotaxi from the ground up is only part of the challenge. Zoox must also scale production, navigate a complex regulatory landscape and demonstrate that its driverless technology can operate safely on public roads. Here’s how the Amazon-owned company got its start, how its robotaxis work and how its approach compares with competitors such as Waymo and Tesla.

Meet Another Robotaxi CompanyWhat Is Waymo? How Its Robotaxi Service Works and Where It’s Expanding

Zoox’s Origin, Amazon Acquisition and Plans for Growth

Zoox was founded in 2014 by Tim Kentley-Klay, an Australian designer and director, and Jesse Levinson, a post-doctorate researcher specializing in autonomous vehicles. The company’s name derives from zooxanthellae, a marine organism that lives in symbiosis with its surroundings, similar to the symbiotic relationship Kentley-Klay envisioned between man and machine. 

In 2018, Zoox raised $500 million at a valuation of $3.2 billion, bringing its total funding to $800 million. The following month, Kentley-Klay was abruptly fired by the company’s board of directors. And in February 2019, it brought on former Intel executive Aicha Evans as CEO.

Amazon acquired Zoox in June 2020 for more than $1.2 billion — about $2 billion less than its 2018 valuation, according to The Financial Times. Evans and Levinson stayed on to run Zoox as a standalone business. While Amazon has said that it supports Zoox’s robotaxi vision, some have speculated that its technology could be incorporated into the e-commerce giant’s electric-powered delivery vans.

Zoox operates about 100 robotaxis as of September 2026, according to TechCrunch, and the company told the Las Vegas Sun it has logged more than 3 million autonomous miles as of August 2026. Zoox began commercial operations in Las Vegas in August 2026, and it has been transporting San Francisco passengers for free until it receives the permits to operate commercially. In the spring of 2026, the company soft-launched its Miami and Austin operations as well, offering rides to the friends and families of its employees, and it plans to expand access to others in the near future.

The company is poised to expand its fleet size and operations after opening its second San Francisco-area production facility: a 220,000 square-foot building capable of churning out 10,000 robotaxis per year at full scale.

How Does Zoox’s Robotaxi Work? 

Zoox’s robotaxis are unlike any other vehicle. It’s not only symmetrical in design, but it’s also bidirectional, meaning it can travel just as fast going forward as it can in reverse. Its maximum speed is 75 miles per hour, but local regulations prevent these vehicles from going anywhere near these speeds.

Measuring less than 12 feet in length, Zoox’s compact design, coupled with its ability to move all four wheels independently, allows it to handle difficult maneuvers, like pulling in and out of tight spaces without needing to parallel park. Its battery can last up to 16 hours on a single charge. Zoox also lets riders choose unique lighting and sound cues to identify their car in a crowded pickup area.

The top corner of each vehicle has sensor pods equipped with LiDAR, radar, cameras, long-wave infrared cameras and microphones. The sensors provide an overlapping 360-degree view of its surroundings for up to 150 meters. Zoox’s machine learning models identify all of the people, cars and cyclists on the road, tracking their velocity and projecting their trajectory. This data is also cross-referenced against a map of the geofenced area in which the company has approval to operate.

The models use this information to make predictions as far as eight seconds into the future, and those predictions are constantly recalculated as new data is gathered.

Learn MoreHow Self-Driving Cars Work: Technology, Safety and Levels Explained

Zoox’s Regulatory Rollout

Zoox’s cars have been on the road since 2018, but it only recently started transporting passengers and charging fares.

In 2018, Zoox became the first company to get California’s approval to transport passengers in an autonomous car with a backup driver. The company got the state’s permission to ditch the backup driver in 2020, when it started testing its driverless cars near its headquarters in Foster City, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. In 2023, Zoox received the state’s approval to transport passengers in a driverless car in Foster City. The company started transporting passengers in San Francisco in 2025, but state laws prohibit it from charging those passengers.

In 2023, Zoox expanded its operations to Las Vegas after receiving Nevada’s permission to operate its robotaxis on public roads. After a couple of years of testing, the company started offering free rides up and down the Las Vegas Strip in 2025. Less than a year later, Zoox started charging customers in Las Vegas.

Zoox has also faced regulatory scrutiny on the federal level. For a vehicle to operate on public roads, it must conform to federal vehicle safety standards, which include a steering wheel and other driving controls. In 2022, Zoox self-certified that it met those standards, prompting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to open an investigation in 2023. That investigation was closed in July 2026, when the agency issued its first commercial exemption for a robotaxi, allowing Zoox to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles annually for two years.

Zoox’s Safety Protocols

Federal agencies are in the process of rewriting regulations for autonomous vehicles. In the meantime, the safety of robotaxis is primarily governed by a patchwork of state laws and a given company’s internal safety policies. 

In its safety framework, Zoox says safety is “foundational” to its mission. The company combines data from computer simulations, closed-course testing and real-world driving to generate an aggregate risk metric, which it compares against existing collision, injury and fatality data. Zoox says its robotaxis must be “significantly safer” than human drivers before they are cleared to operate on public roads.

While Zoox’s robotaxis are largely autonomous, their operations are monitored remotely by its TeleGuidance team. When a vehicle encounters a complex situation or asks for assistance, the TeleGuidance doesn’t take control. Instead, it offers guidance, like suggesting an alternate route, while the robotaxi remains responsible for all driving decisions. If an event creates an unanticipated safety risk above an acceptable level, Zoox may decide to pause operations while implementing measures to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. Passengers can also contact Zoox’s support team before, during and after their ride within the Zoox app.

Zoox’s safety record has faced some bumps in the road however. The NHTSA launched an investigation into the company in May 2024 when several of its vehicles unexpectedly stopped, causing two rear-end collisions with motorcyclists. Zoox issued a recall on 258 vehicles that were using that version of its software. It has since issued software recalls over a car crash in April 2025, a collision with an e-scooter rider in May 2025, illegal lane crossings in December 2025 and its difficulty navigating a smoky environment in June 2026.

Related ReadingTesla’s Cybercab is Finally Here. Now Comes the Hard Part.

Zoox vs. Waymo vs. Cybercab

Started in 2009 as Google’s self-driving car project, Waymo retrofits other manufacturers’ cars with its technology and lets partners run its depots, so it’s been able to scale its operations faster than Zoox, which owns everything from vehicle manufacturing to depot management. With more than 270 million unsupervised miles under its belt, Waymo operates nearly 4,000 robotaxis in 15 cities as of October 2026. Zoox, meanwhile, has driven more than 3 million autonomous miles as of August 2026, and according to TechCrunch, it operates roughly 100 vehicles as of September 2026. The company offers rides in San Francisco and Las Vegas, and it plans to launch its Miami and Austin operations soon. 

Zoox is in closer competition with Tesla’s Cybercab, which has logged 1 million unsupervised miles as of September 2026. Tesla has registered 250 Cybercabs in Texas as of October 2026, and one tracker estimates there are roughly 360 vehicles across Texas and Florida. Similar to Zoox, Tesla designs and manufactures its own vehicles, and they also lack steering wheels, pedals and other driver controls. Unlike Zoox’s cars, the Cybercab relies only on cameras, allowing Tesla to save money on expensive lidar, radar and long-wave infrared sensors.

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