Zoox Expands Service and Brings Its Robotaxi to Two New Cities
Independent business Zoox expands its existing service areas and brings its robotaxis to two new cities.
The company said Tuesday it was expanding its autonomous carpooling service in more areas of Las Vegas and San Francisco. In Vegas, the number of places where people can ride a Zoox robotaxi has more than doubled, adding places like the Las Vegas Convention Center and most major hotels on the Strip. Anyone can ride in Las Vegas by downloading the Zoox app and showing up at a designated pick-up point. The company is also slowly rolling out its services to high-traffic venues like the Sphere and T-Mobile Arena, first for Zoox employees and then for the public later this spring.
In San Francisco, Zoox is quadrupling its service area to expand to the eastern half of the city, including the Marina, North Beach and Chinatown. It will also operate in Pacific Heights and along the Embarcadero. Currently, only select the first runners can ride a Zoox robotaxi in San Francisco, but the company says it’s opening up to more passengers on its waiting list. You can register by downloading the Zoox app from the App Store or Google Play.
Watch this: This robotaxi looks and drives like no car you’ve ever seen before
Since mid-2024, Zoox has been testing its autonomous driving technology in Miami and Austin, Texas, using its fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlanders. Today, it is also preparing to deploy its robotaxis in these cities. It will first deploy its vehicles “in a small area of both cities,” the company said in a blog post. The rides will initially be available only to Zoox employees, their family members and friends. Zoox will expand operating areas as testing progresses and eventually open up to the first riders from the general public.
Zoox robotaxis have a cart-style interior with two rows facing each other. There is no driver’s seat or steering wheel.
Amazon-owned Zoox claims its robo-taxis have traveled nearly 2 million miles autonomously and transported more than 350,000 passengers to date. Travel is still free as the company scales and awaits regulatory approval to charge passengers.
Zoox operates in many of the same cities that Alphabet owns Waymowhich claims to have driven 170 million miles autonomously through December 2025. Unlike Waymo’s fleet of retrofitted Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, Zoox operates a “specially designed robotaxis” without a driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals. Instead, the interior has a horse-drawn carriage-like design, with two rows of passengers facing each other, seating a total of four people. Square vehicles are also bi-directional, so they can operate in either direction.
Earlier this month, Zoox expanded its operations to Phoenix and Dallas, where its testing fleet will first manually map areas before beginning autonomous testing. Zoox also operates in Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta And Washington, D.C..
Like its AV competitors, Zoox joins forces with the traditional ride-sharing service Uber to make rides available also through this app. Customers in Las Vegas will be able to hail a Zoox vehicle through the Uber app starting this summer, and riders in Los Angeles will be able to do the same next year. Uber now has more than two dozen audiovisual partners, including Waymo, Nuro And May Mobility. Making robotaxis available through an app that people already have on their phones could make it easier for new riders to consider getting into an autonomous vehicle.
