Zoox goes live in Vegas

Five years after Jeff Bezos' empire dropped $1.3 billion on the Zoox startup, the toaster-shaped EVs are now offering free rides in Las Vegas. These vehicles look like a cross between a tram and a casino shuttle, with no steering wheel, no pedals, just two benches facing each other and a 16-hour battery life.

The market leader in autonomous vehicles is Waymo, with over 10 million paid rides since 2020. Tesla is hot on their heels, but still using cars with human pilots supervising your drive. Zoox hasn't retrofitted a normal car, they are betting that building something weirdly futuristic is the way to win.

Waymo currently has over 2 000 autonomous cars on the road; Zoox is making one per day, and eventually targeting 10 000 a year. Profitability is likely a 2030s story. But Amazon's patient capital means this is less about today's fares and more about owning the future of urban mobility.