Amazon’s Zoox Purchase Says a Lot About the Future of Self-Driving Cars
Don’t get too excited about robotaxis.
Hey, it’s Josh. This was supposed to be Zoox's year, and it has been. Sort of.
Way back in 2018 my colleague Ashlee Vance profiled the founders of the startup, which had raised hundreds of millions of dollars to put self-driving robotaxis on public roads by 2020. It was a concept that seemed tantalizingly possible back then—its competitors included Alphabet Inc., General Motors Co., Tesla Inc., Apple Inc. and Daimler AG. But Zoox’s co-founder, Tim Kentley-Klay, said all of them were thinking too small. If everything went according to Zoox's grand plan, Kentley-Klay said: “They’re f---ed.”