For the past 100 hundred years, virtually all cars have shared the same logic: a steering wheel, pedals and a person in the driver’s seat. Zoox decided to ask: What would a vehicle look like if it didn’t need a driver – not even an autonomous driving system?
Founded in 2014 by Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson in California, the company developed a fully autonomous, electric, robotaxi designed exclusively to transport passengers. Unlike most companies in the industry, which incorporated autonomous driving systems into traditional vehicles, Zoox chose to build an entirely new car. The design, software, sensors and driving system were conceived as a single ecosystem from the beginning.
The result breaks with almost all the references of the conventional car. The vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and can move in both directions without the need to turn or reverse. In addition, it has steering on all four wheels, improving its maneuverability in urban environments.
Unlike in a traditional car, passengers travel seated face to face, transforming the journey into a more personal experience. The space was designed for talking, working or simply leaving behind the logic of a vehicle designed around the driver.
In 2020, Amazon acquired Zoox with the goal of accelerating the development of this technology and moving towards the commercial implementation of Robotaxis in large cities.
The interesting thing about Zoox is that the company did not attempt to build a car that could drive itself, but rather to rethink what a vehicle would look like. That difference completely changes the way mobility is understood and shows that sometimes true innovation is not about improving an existing product, but about questioning the assumptions with which a technology was originally designed.
Source: Zoox