I’m not sure how much you remember from the heady days of 2013, when we were all wondering what foxes said and watching compelling seconds upon seconds of video on Vine, but one thing I remember was that there was a mysterious company showing a Level 4 automated vehicle at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The company was called Zoox, and I remember them because of their oddly mysterious and cryptic web presence, which gave absolutely no information about the company or product, leading me to suggest that perhaps this Zoox company (which enjoys a lot of investment from internet book-and-everything-seller Amazon) was “vaporware horseshit,” like so many other tech startups. Well now, 11 years after I so callously applied those words to this company, they’re starting actual robotaxi service in Las Vegas!
Is this one of those situations where I need to eat my words, or issue a formal apology? Maybe? I don’t know. It’s been over a decade, and, besides, the Zoox people have seemed to embrace the “vaporware horseshit” moniker because they good-naturedly have named all of their vehicles VH-(number), after the initials of my unflattering speculative term. [Ed Note: Yes, you read that right. They are naming their models after the term Jason used in his blog. Incredible! -DT].
The basic design of Zoox’s robotaxi – which they claim to be the “first” robotaxi because it may be the first purpose-built one and not an adaptation of an existing automobile (like the robotaxis from Waymo or Cruise have been) – is interesting, in that it is a bi-directional design with no provision for human driving whatsoever.
Zoox claims the design was inspired by old horse carriages, and the seating position, two rows of two passengers each, facing one another, certainly fits that old stagecoach-like model. Last year, the company ran into some hiccups with federal certification of their AVs because they seem to have just come up with their own test procedures, but it appears they’ve managed to get certification now.
They do seem to have done some crash testing, even:
Zoox has been testing their robotaxi around Las Vegas for the past year, saying this about their plans:
We’re kicking things off with a one-mile loop around the neighborhood where our Las Vegas HQ is located, and we will expand over the coming months. Our robotaxis can transport four people at a time along this public route, at speeds up to 35 mph. The first riders are Zoox employees, and what we learn from these journeys will help us build our future public service.
We’ve chosen an initial route that will put our vehicle through its paces. It must navigate several unprotected turns and multi-way stops—all on busy public roads with cyclists, pedestrians, and cars.
It now seems they’re about ready to start commercial service, and they appear to have arranged for YouTube personality Supercar Blondie (who actually appears to have pinkish hair) to ride around in one and gush about it:
The video also does note how the dream of automated vehicles is nearing 100 years old, as it was 1925 when the experimental Houdina radio-controlled vehicle was tested, leading to escape artist Harry Houdini trashing the company’s office.
The Zoox interior looks fairly comfortable and hard-wearing, with every passenger getting a cupholder and inductive phone charger, and bench seats that seem to be designed to impede laying down and sleeping on. The glass doors also limit the amount of privacy inside the vehicle, which I suspect was done to keep people from using these as a convenient place to bone.
Zoox seems to be planning on expanding their Vegas service area from one mile trips to five-mile ones, and the speed of their cars from 35 mph to 45 mph. Once this officially starts operation, I suppose it will be significant because of the purpose-built nature of the vehicle, though overall I’m not really sure how important that is.
Still, it’s interesting. I think Level 4 – that is, AVs that operate in specific, mapped-out areas – are the best bet for achieving the sorts of things we seem to want from automated vehicles, and feel like a better use of development and resources at this moment than the vastly more difficult full Level 5 (no restrictions, just self-driving anywhere and everywhere).
So, is this company, which has funding and plans and several generations of actual hardware no longer Vaporware Horseshit?
Maybe. I think I need to ride in one first and see. Because I take my Vaporware Horseshit de-classifications seriously.
I haven’t seen low-pros like that since the hey day of Hot Import Nights.
Being Vegas, I’m surprised there’s no slot machine inside to increase revenue during the ride.
… Yet. The riders are employees for the time being, so it’d be a little awkward.
I think I rode on one of these a few years ago, being tested by my local Transit Authority. It went a mile or so, stopped at a light, and a couple of stop signs, went about 15 mph. Had two guys with keyboards wired to the vehicle riding along monitoring the ride or whatever.
I was the first “civilian” rider at the debut. I have a challenge coin and some other swag.
Strangely, the manufacturer or the vehicle wasn’t mentioned at all in press releases or reports, but it looks like the same design.
blob:https://www.theautopian.com/39429e8a-b46d-478a-87b0-c30d5d46fb54
So I know something about Zoox – they’ve been doing testing on the internal road network at my workplace for almost 10 years (I guess they took the VH insult to heart).
For the most part, their testing involves driving around a fleet of Toyota Highlanders with lots of sensor hardware strapped to it. About 8 years ago they started testing with a development mule that was entertaining because it had a safety driver facing each way. In the last few years they’ve ramped up their testing with the Robotaxi, though I think until about a year ago they had to have an employee in the vehicle to pull the emergency brake if things go pear-shaped.
I haven’t ridden in one yet, but actually think private campuses could be a great business-case for these kind of vehicles – not exactly a huge market, but I routinely have meetings a mile apart, and am somehow expected to get from one to the other instantly. I typically have to drive across site and then apologize for being late after spending at least 5 minutes searching for a parking space. Until I can teleport, a Zoox ride would make my life much easier.
Sounds like you need some Zoom in your life. I regularly have online meetings with people who are sitting 50 feet down the hall, because, well, we’re already comfortable at our desks, and do we really really really need to uproot ourselves and find a conference room?
And think, with just a little less effort you can say screw it, why do we bother wasting our own considerable time and money going to the office at all just to help the landlord’s bottom line?
Do you think that in 20 or 30 years there will be a segment on the VH cars on I’m Meh About the 2020s, At Best on VH1?
It’s easy to make another boring appliance car. It’s hard to make one that actually looks like a toaster.
Crazy how this robotaxi has 22″ wheels
They look good in renderings, just as Adrian Clarke
Hey Adrian Clarke looks good IRL, not just renderings
you got me, it was supposed to be ask, no as. Cool handle, I’m considering a Bongo Friendee as a a HiAce alternative
Anything in a 1 mile radius is going to automatically be a walk for me. 5 miles, maybe, depending on weather, or if I’m carrying a load. That said, most of Las Vegas (and too many US cities) are hell on earth for pedestrians. Wouldn’t improving pedestrian infrastructure be a better more efficient investment than this stuff?
*gets mowed down by F150 Raptor as he posts*
Because I am fucking crazy, I walked from McCarran to the Strip a couple years ago. Protip: there’s basically not a legal way to leave the airport on foot. I got fussed at more than once and crossed several highways (not interstates, but big damn highways). It was grueling, it was dangerous, but no one can take away that beautiful vision of a discarded jar of mayonnaise, mostly full, rendering in the warm Nevada sunshine at the foot of the statue outside the airport.
You’re pretty much right, but in my experience most major airports don’t have a walkable exit, not in the US. I can think of one legal way to walk out of LAS, but it would take you so far out of the way to The Strip that you wouldn’t want to do it.
You can also take the free offsite car rental shuttle, but that puts you two miles further from The Strip, but on a walkable city street.
Protip if you want a rideshare: take the car rental shuttle to the rental car center then fetch your Uber or Lyft from there. It’s cheaper.
What’s your way? I think you can walk out of the lower level of Terminal 3, turn right, and end up at Russell and Landing Strip, but yeah, that’s about as far away from the Strip as you can get.
Yes, that’s about what I had in mind. But why anyone would want to do it is beyond me.
I really hate Uber and I’m just a weird, weird, deeply weird guy. It is not my recommendation at all, and frankly don’t really blame airports for not having regular walking paths, given that they’re often miles out of the nearest city or town anyway.
Mechjaz, you’re my kind of peeps. I did that once many years ago. Left a snowstorm at home, arrived in sunny Las Vegas with a bit of time to spare and decided to walk to the convention centre. We see a lot of coverage about road rage. I didn’t know sidewalk rage was a thing until then.
I had a friend who regularly walked home from Toronto’s Pearson airport, so they must have a civilized access. I’ve even heard they have bike lockers. That’s so cool to me. Like they have closed the loop with the Wright brothers.
PDX appears to have a sidewalk out to Airport Way, although hopping on the MAX is probably the best way to get somewhere more pedestrian friendly.
I live in Las Vegas and have seen many autonomous-but-manned Zoox vehicles over the past 5ish years. They’re generally converted CUV. They are treated by drivers as rolling roadblocks. They observe speed limits far more rigidly than humans do. It’s not good.
Maybe they’re just VanHalen fans? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I think these look kind of cool, I have no need to ride in a 1 mile loop around Vegas but it’d be cool to see these things quietly pulling up to the curb and dropping off and picking up passengers looking like something out of a SciFi flick.
Oh, so they spent billions of dollars making a less efficient street car trolley/BRT line? Get to save all that money not paying a driver though. Another successful victory in strip-mining the labor out of a solved technology!
“Oh, so they spent billions of dollars making a less efficient street car trolley/BRT line?”
No, they made a more efficient, possibly more hygienic taxi.
“Get to save all that money not paying a driver though. Another successful victory in strip-mining the labor out of a solved technology!”
If you want to pay a human for doing a robot’s job you go right on ahead. Then you can pay the human even more as a %$# tip because that’s an expectation too.
Me, I’ll take a Johnny cab.
Very interesting. I’d expect it’ll take a couple of years before these are ready for the general public, even on Level 4 roads. And kudos to the company, where there is clearly a Torch fan embedded somewhere.
Jason has rightfully ranted about this before, but the Automation Levels that we use are terrible at conveying actual capability to the public, and I’d wager intentionally bad to non-technical investors. This thing can be considered Level 4 Autonomous while piddling in a 1-mile loop at 30 mph, meanwhile GM’s Super Cruise and similar handsfree high-way driving systems are Level 2 MAYBE 2.5 on a good day, yet have generally provided far more benefit and usefulness to real people.
Level 4 looks great on paper, “We’re only one step from the last level of full automation, a few billion more in investment and we’ll get there!” which is so pitifully wrong. Every single autonomous taxi/vehicle/Vaporware Horseshit out there today operates in an extremely narrow window of what driving is, and often does that poorly. The jump in computation, sensing, model training, and time to create a system that can and will always operate a vehicle is so massive, it may not be a practical reality in our lifetimes.
The amount of computation required to get a model that can operate reliably and redundantly in all conditions, yes a blizzard, hurricane, and everything in between, is so vast, it’s only a matter of time for the industry to run out of funding and give up, especially for taxis.
It’s not that Jason is full of bs, the massive amount of startups sometimes involving self-driving and electric cars that didn’t make it made him jaded. If I were to put a name to his skepticism I will first blame Elio
My first thought was ” what happens in Vegas………” , where I live the Romans built a road once, the rest are single track ( with passing places) and at this time of year, overhung with trees one minute, open moorland( no shoulder, the road just blends at the edges the next, the verges in other places are five feet high, and then there are the cattle grids. And the sheep. I sometimes get to drive sooper dooper modern cars with all the helpful stuff in them. At least one had to be collected because I could not stop it beeping and stopping. But then, I suppose I would find driving in Las Vegas difficult.
How do AVs handle ovine gridlock?
Soooo…a small bus. Not sure how revolutionary this is…
A small bus…OF THE FUTURE!
I think you will need to ride in one first. Although it appears well on its way to losing the vaporware title, it could still certainly be horseshit. But if it is both real and not horseshit, you may need to print a copy of those words onto one of those custom cakes and actually eat them. Or for, idk, 50 new subs to the site, eat actual paper!
What a bunch of horseshit ha ha
VH? Now I want to go watch some VHS tapes…or old school VH-1/MTV when they actually showed REAL music videos…also Headbanger’s Ball!
Also, those seats are terrible…in fact, the whole thing is horrible. I’d rather they set up roller coaster tracks everywhere to get around…THAT would be fun!
Interesting. I was reminded on a train trip recently that I have absolutely no interest in sitting face-to-face with strangers in an enclosed space, but if this is a single person/group per trip that might be okay.
Also, are they paying you royalties for naming their vehicles for them? 😉
Just needs Fred Armisen riding in there with you saying scuze
It is a personal bus, the only type of “public” transportation I can support.
I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
Where would you put luggage and if it’s in the seats, do you get charged extra? I’m guessing, initially, these things won’t service McCarran -oops- Harry Reid International Airport, so maybe luggage isn’t a big deal for typical passengers on their inaugural loop. Just wait, though, someone will figure out a way to make more money from them, like putting slots at every seat. Or maybe private high stakes moving poker games.
You’re assuming your luggage actually showed up when you landed. I commend your optimism.
It usually shows up…somewhere…
“The glass doors also limit the amount of privacy inside the vehicle, which I suspect was done to keep people from using these as a convenient place to bone.”
Won’t work if the perps are exhibitionists.
Good thing this is in Vegas. Real exhibitionists do it in the Bellagio fountains.
“Oh they’re not using that Blackjack table? Let’s go, honey”.
They should probably expand to Amsterdam next.
Then they would have to put on the red light.
There are a number of companies that have funding and plans for several generations of hardware that are absolutely still in the realm of vapourware horseshit. Look at Elio Motors.
That thing looks positively dystopian. If only those Lidar turrets released assault drones. Also, I’d rather ride in a trunk than sit face to face with stranger.
Same, I have no desire to sit face with a stranger.
Oooh, face *to* face, yes of course. Ahem.
Buses kind of get away it though, yeah? But there’s a lot more space, or if not space, people, to diffuse some of the “in a small box with a stranger” energy.
At least there are big glass doors so everybody can watch you getting murdered.
Don’t be worried. When the authorities switch back to Metric again without telling them, it will all be disabled.
“I like conversing with you all online for thousands to read on a daily basis.
Also, I’d rather risk death from suffocation than have a conversation or even say hello if you sat in front of me.”
I’m not trying to attack you, I just find it a bit amusing and ironic. I imagine a scene in which you and several other strangers awkwardly bond over your hatred of sitting face to face with each other and then go back to uncomfortable silence for a lengthy ride.
Buses and trains have had this seating arrangement for decades. What is the issue? This is basically a small bus.