Amazon’s Zoox Robotaxi Starts Free Rides in Las Vegas

Las Vegas, the one place you would love to showcase new technology, it really is the place where a lot of new things arrive first. It's the perfect spot, they have the bright lights, the big hotels, the concerts, the fights and shows.

The future of the automobile industry is undoubtedly going to be fully autonomous vehicles or self driving cars if you will.

I would like to point out that in as much as the horrible news of Charlie Kirk's assassination took place on September 10, that was also the day Amazon’s company Zoox started giving people free rides on the Las Vegas Strip in small cars, we generally term them as robotaxis.

Now I'm not talking about your Tesla vehicle that can drive itself when you let go of the steering wheel, these cars have no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver seat.

What you get on the inside are two benches facing each other, so people sit like they are in a small living room, but this living room moves.

It's new technology so you can't expect to have it operate everywhere. Right now, Zoox rides are only between a few big places. The stops include Resorts World Las Vegas, AREA15, Topgolf and some other fun spots near the Strip. If you're nearby, you have an opportunity to order that ride.

It's limited in terms of where it can go, you cannot tell the car to take you anywhere you want, yet. There's a list of places on the Zoox app for the passengers to choose from.

The company has promised that more stops will be added in the coming months, so gradually they expand the reach of their cars.

The part that surprises the most is that the rides are free for now, so anyone with the Zoox app can try it, and of course you need to be eligible, by that I mean be at a location the service can be rendered to you and some parts of Las Vegas has become the perfect spot to be if you want access.

I did say for now because they are a business, they can't operate for free for too long. When Zoox gets all the government approvals, they plan to charge money for rides, just like Uber or Lyft does.

Zoox is proud to say they are the first company to launch a fully autonomous ride hailing service using cars built only for that job. The future we anticipated is now here. Other companies like Waymo or Cruise have used regular cars that were modified to drive without a human driver.

Waymo company uses Jaguar cars, and Cruise used Chevy Bolt EVs but Zoox managed to make their own car from scratch, designed only for ride hailing.

As you can see from the screenshots I shared, the Zoox robotaxi is about the size of a small Fiat car.

It runs on electricity, with two motors and can move in both directions. That's a great feature since it'll make it much easy to turn around on busy Las Vegas streets. For now, Las Vegas is the first city in the world to have this Zoox service. Zoox has already announced that the next city will be San Francisco and after that they want to go to Austin and Miami.

For the city of Las Vegas, this is another proof that this city is not only about casinos and shows, they're also testing grounds for new technology. It's a good thing because now tourists can come over to not only see but experience the future of transportation, and do so while they enjoy the city and all the things that makes it Las Vegas. The locals have a great advantage over here.

It's free rides on the Strip, but perhaps in a few years, the robotaxis might be able to take people across the valley.

All Screenshots taken from YouTube, CNBC