The theme of the week so far has been self driving cars. Just yesterday, we heard that Waymo and Polestar had entered a level 4 tech partnership, and now car tech start up, Zoox, have entered the fray.
They’re not the best-known in autonomous driving technology, but they’ve made some pretty bold promises to the public. According to their website, not only are they working towards complete car autonomy, they’re doing this with purpose-built “symmetrical, bidirectional, zero-emissions vehicles.” Sounds like a Gen Z kid with a hoverboard if you ask me.
They want their cars to drive autonomously like no other. They’re taking it to cities, to highways, making unprotected lefts, hitting hard rights on red. They’re giving way to pedestrians and glossing over double-parked cars. Basically, all the things that make you SCREAM in anger. Maybe now you can all just chill the eff out.
Who are Zoox?
Founded in 2014, the auto tech startup promised to have self-driving taxis in San Francisco by 2020. Well, it’s 2020, and there are no self-driving taxis in sunny San Fran.
But let’s not be too quick to slate them just yet. After all, Amazon have sniffed the potential and after some back and forth between the two companies, it seems as though the Bezos gang have finally acquired Zoox for a reported $1.2 billion.
In Amazon’s statement, they said that both companies will work together, designing passenger-centric, autonomous ride-hailing cars from the ground up.
Not quite what Amazon had in mind initially. At first, they were going to buy Zoox’s tech to deliver packages instead of people, but Zoox ain’t falling prey to Jeff’s online retail, product-before-people empire. Yet.
Enter Musk
While we can all get on board with this autonomous ride-hailing thing, one man who didn’t seem too impressed was the man with an EV plan, the modern day Nikola Tesla, the self-appointed Chief Genius Officer, Mister Elon Musk.
It seemed as though taking a swipe at Jeff Bezos was too good an opportunity to pass up, and he took to Twitter to give his two cents (consider it an investment).
This was the Tweet:
Good use of the catmoji there, Elon, that must be in your most used list after you’ve probably called half the billionaire world copy cats.
Let’s give Musk some props though. He only just offered his customers the chance to get the Autopilot feature as an in-app purchase for just $2,000. That’s probably why he’s butt hurt seeing all these amateurs coming on board the AV (Autonomous Vehicle) train. Offer ends tomorrow by the way.
Meanwhile, Bezos ain’t got time to be on Twitter and engage in petty feuds. Acquiring Zoox is a pretty cool follow up to Amazon’s shrewd investments in Silicon Valley startup, Aurora and EV company Rivian, which will enable them to put together a fleet of self-driving zero-emission delivery trucks. That’ll definitely help further his “next hour delivery” agenda. Zoox for Elon Musk that does #dadjokes.
