Amazon acquires self-driving startup Zoox

Amazon acquires self-driving startup Zoox

• A number of news outlets are reporting that Amazon is apparently going to acquire the self driving technology start up Zoox, for $1.2bn.

• There is speculation that the aim is to create a ride share company to rival companies such as Uber & Waymo. Waymo is currently the only company operating a “real” driverless service, based in suburban Phoenix.

• Zoox has focused on a bi directional driverless car, with no steering wheel and no obvious front or back. That feature is seen as useful for city driving, with an obvious application as a delivery vehicle. This application would match better with Amazon’s current online retail activities than a big push into ride share..

Analysis and Comments

• Interestingly, there is a suggestion that the reason for Amazon acquiring the technology could be for home delivery. This would make sense to us.

• Back in 2019 Amazon announced they were taking a stake in the EV manufacturer Rivian and then in Sept they announced they were going to purchase 100,000 EV delivery vans. More recently they released photos of the new vans … in Amazon Prime livery Taking a closer look at the new Amazon EV's

• They expect to start deliveries with the new vehicles in 2021 and to have as many as 10,000 vans on the road by 2022

• It doesn’t take much imagination to put the EV vans together with driverless technology to see how home deliveries might look toward the end of this decade.

• A note of caution … the Zoox vehicle was supposed to be up & running in 2020, but its been delayed. This seems to be a trend in the industry. Level 5 vehicles has been just a few years away (according to some commentators) for some time. But the reality is we don’t even have a Level 3 car in production. And some analysts think we may never reach Level 5 Self driving car - reality check (Wired)

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