Amazon’s Self Driving Unit Zoox Unveils a Self-Driving Robotaxi

Zoox, the self-driving unit of Amazon, unveiled its self-driving robotaxi on Monday, a carriage-style car where passengers face one another while riding.

The robotaxi is capable of traveling up to 75 miles an hour and can run up to 16 hours on just a single charge.

The electric, fully driverless vehicle, was built for ride hailing. There is no space for a driver or passenger seat, since there’s no steering wheel. It has space for up to four passengers to ride at one time.

It was only this past June that Amazon acquired Zoox, a six-year old start up but little details had been offered about the company’s technology.

The car features an array of cameras, radar and lidar sensors that are mounted on all four corners of the car, eliminating “typical blind spots” and giving it a 270-degree field of view on the road. It’s also equipped with an airbag system on all four seats.

These are features that set it apart from Alphabet’s Waymo, GM’s Cruise, Uber and Tesla, which are rivals in the self-driving arena. Zoox’s robotaxi also has bidirectional driving capabilities and four-wheel steering, which allows it to change directions without the need to reverse and navigate in compact spaces.

Zoox is currently testing in three cities, Las Vegas, Nevada; Foster City, California; and San Francisco, California.

The company plans to launch an app-based ridesharing service eventually but the first target markets will be San Francisco and Las Vegas.

“Zoox is the first in the industry to showcase a driving, purpose-built robotaxi capable of operating up to 75 miles per hour,” the company told CNBC. “While our vehicle is not ready for commercial use yet, this marks a key milestone towards our vision of building an autonomous robotaxi fleet and ride-hailing service.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.