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Amazon Zoox Unveils Autonomous Robotaxi

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 15 2020, @05:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the gad-zoox! dept.

takyon writes:

Amazon's Zoox unveils electric robotaxi that can travel up to 75 mph

Six years ago, Zoox launched quietly with a mighty mission: build and commercialize just about every aspect of a robotaxi service from the self-driving software stack and on-demand ridesharing app to the management of the fleet and an unconventional vehicle that would transport passengers.

Now, it's finally lifting the veil on its multi-year effort. Zoox, which was acquired earlier this year by Amazon, unveiled the electric, autonomous robotaxi it built from the ground up — a cube-like vehicle loaded with sensors, no steering wheel and a moonroof that is capable of transporting four people at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. The vehicle can drive bidrectionally and has four-wheel steering, capabilities that Zoox said were included to allow it to maneuver through compact spaces and change directions without the need to reverse. In other words, dense urban environments.

The vehicle has a four-seat, face-to-face symmetrical seating configuration, similar to what a train traveler might encounter. It's also equipped with a 133 kilowatt-hour battery that Zoox said allows it to operate for up to 16 continuous hours on a single charge. Zoox didn't provide a mileage range for the battery.

Also at The Verge, Bloomberg, CNBC, and NYT.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:03PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:03PM (#1087547) Journal

    If it can determine the angle and exact time, just plug those into your local AI surveillance camera panopticon.

    People get caught shining lasers at airplane cockpits, even though you would think they could do it and hide in some nearby woods or something.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:22PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:22PM (#1087552)

    >People get caught shining lasers at airplane cockpits

    If downing passenger jets is "fun" for them, they probably aren't the sharpest tools in the box.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:26PM

    by c0lo (156) on Tuesday December 15 2020, @01:26PM (#1087554) Journal

    If it can determine the angle and exact time, just plug those into your local AI surveillance camera panopticon.

    The Alexa, Siri or Hey, Google panopticon? (the last two aren't actually interested in helping Amazon)
    Or that one is still to be build from the taxes?

    People get caught shining lasers at airplane cockpits, even though you would think they could do it and hide in some nearby woods or something.

    Because the one caught were stupid enough to think of it as "for the lulz".
    Remember the Gatwick Airport drone incident [wikipedia.org]? A trick harder to pull than shooting a laser, but the actual perpetrator was not found even today.

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