Amazon bought Zoox half a year ago and is already testing the clean and autonomous robotaxi on the streets of San Francisco. It is a compact, driverless car, with high security measures and ready to drive in large cities.
The autonomous car proposal that Zoox and Amazon make us is quite peculiar, since, instead of converting an existing model into a smart vehicle, they have created a new one and have changed several aspects. The aesthetics of this robotaxi is also striking. It is true that “modern” cars rarely look normal or like them from the first glance.
Taking a look inside the Zoox autonomous vehicle, we see 4 seats facing each other as in the tables of 4 of the AVE here in Spain, we see that the seats are rigid and hard, have seat belts, armrests, space to put drinks, there is no steering wheel and doors are sliding.
This autonomous vehicle has two battery packs that promise up to 16 hours of use , in addition to the fact that inside the cabin there are bidirectional airbas , since the car does not have a front and “trunk”, as we say in Spain.
From the outside we see that each corner of the robotaxi is monitored by a camera, in this way, the dangerous blind spots that driving and current vehicles do have disappear. Each camera has a vision of 270 degrees and has a radar and LIDAR system to avoid collisions, frictions, or unforeseen events, since it identifies the distance of each object and warns.
Despite the ridiculous size of Zoox, 3.63 meters, and being an electric car , it is capable of exceeding 120 km / hour , a speed more than acceptable when it comes to an autonomous car focused on driving in cities.
It has not transpired if there is any limitation in the weight of the passenger compartment, nor if it is mandatory to share the Zoox robotaxi, how far it can travel, etc. Of course, that it has been tried in San Francisco is interesting, ayq eui there are many sloping streets.
The taxi issue is revolutionizing the motoring market, and not only because of electric cars, but because other companies are already going for electric gifts .