Zoox’s boxy robotaxis have been cruising the streets of San Francisco for about a year, and eager spectators can now climb aboard. The company said Tuesday it’s allowing members of the public to get off its waitlist and into its autonomous vehicles roaming the city.
San Francisco is the second location in which Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, has opened up its ride-hailing service, following its September launch in Las Vegas. As part of what Zoox calls its Explorers program, early riders can use the service for free and share feedback before it opens up to the wider public. In San Francisco, Zoox’s service area includes most of SoMa, the Mission and the Design District. You can join the waitlist by downloading the Zoox app on Google Play or Apple’s App Store.
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“Zoox has been testing our autonomous technology in San Francisco since 2017,” Aicha Evans, Zoox’s CEO, said in a statement. “It’s our home. A city of innovation and progress, with an amazing mobility ecosystem that we feel Zoox can really complement. We have seen incredible interest in Zoox in this market and are excited about this first step to bring our purpose-built robotaxi experience to more people.”
Zoox’s robotaxis look quite different from just about every other vehicle on the road. They’re symmetrical and bidirectional (meaning they can drive in either direction), and don’t have a driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals. Instead, there are two seats on each side that face toward a spacious center — which is helpful when you need some extra legroom. I took an early test ride in Las Vegas last year before Zoox opened up to the public. Despite the unique layout, I quickly adjusted, and it ended up feeling just like a standard ride.
The inside of a Zoox vehicle.
Along with San Francisco and Las Vegas, Zoox’s robotaxis have been driving around Foster City, California, where the company’s headquarters are located — but those rides aren’t yet open to the public.
The company also operates a test fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlander hybrids with a safety driver behind the wheel in other locations including Seattle; Miami; Los Angeles; Atlanta; Washington, DC; and Austin, Texas. Those test vehicles have the same sensor hardware (including lidar, radar and cameras) as the robotaxis, and are used to map areas and ensure software is ready for autonomous rides.
Last week, Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, expanded its ride-hailing service to stretch across more than 260 square miles of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its vehicles, which are retrofitted Jaguar I-Paces, can now drive on freeways in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles. The San Francisco Bay Area will also be the launch location for a self-driving partnership between Uber, autonomous vehicle company Nuro and electric vehicle maker Lucid late next year.
You can download the Zoox app to ride in San Francisco and Las Vegas.
How to hail a Zoox ride in San Francisco
You can download the Zoox app on Google Play or Apple’s App Store, and then join the waitlist. Zoox will invite people from that waitlist to hitch a ride. It notes, “Riders will be let off the waitlist pending criteria such as location and the introduction of additional robotaxis to the fleet.” Eventually, the San Francisco waitlist will be removed and the entire public will have the option to hail a ride.
You’ll be able to go to any specific point within Zoox’s service area, which in San Francisco includes most of SoMa, the Mission and the Design District. You can either enter a street address, drop a pin for your destination or choose from suggested points of interest in the app.
Zoox will drop you off as close to your end point as possible, and will also show walking directions, if needed, to guide you to your final destination.
Initially, rides will be free as Zoox takes feedback and scales its offering. It’s not clear how much it’ll cost to hail a ride once the company obtains regulatory approval to charge passengers. But as a point of reference, rides in San Francisco with competitor Waymo are often comparable to or slightly pricier than a human-driven Uber or Lyft ride, depending on the location and time of day.
Zoox is clearly preparing to ramp up the rollout of its fleet. In June, the company unveiled its new 220,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hayward, California, which can crank out around 10,000 robotaxis a year.