(7 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Las Vegas – 5 January 2025
1. Zoox robo taxi departing
2. Interior of robotaxi during a ride
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Zoox:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
“At Zoox we’re building a fleet of robotaxis, which are self-driving vehicles that can pick you up and drop you off wherever you want to go in the city. And unlike privately owned cars, we will own and operate the fleet, so you won’t have to worry about them. You’ll use them just like you use ride hailing today, but much nicer, much safer experience."
4. Various of Zoox robotaxi
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Zoox:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
"So, developing autonomous vehicles and getting the technology to the point where it’s safe enough to drive on public roads with no driver has certainly taken Zoox and the industry many, many years. It’s a very challenging problem because the safety bar is so high. You have to be able to handle just about any situation. And as we experienced in our ride earlier today, you have pop up construction zones and emergency vehicles and pedestrians and all kinds of stuff, and you have to be able to handle it all. So we’ve collected many, many millions of miles of data on public roads and run so many more than millions of simulations to really test just about anything that could happen and get that safety and reliability to the point where it’s better than the human driver. And that has taken quite some time. But we’re very happy we’re at that level now and we’re excited to roll it out."
6. Various of Zoox robotaxi interior
7. Parked robotaxi
8. Various of robotaxi during a ride
9. Close of Zoox logo on robotaxi
10. Pan of robotaxi
STORYLINE:
CES attendees and Las Vegas visitors may see some driverless cars on the Strip this week.
And the company behind them, Amazon-owned Zoox, says it’s a preview of what’s to come.
The carriage-style blue shuttles, which don’t have a steering wheel or pedals, are currently on the roads of three cities: Las Vegas, San Francisco and Foster City, California.
For now, riders remain limited to company employees and special guests. But Zoox says its robotaxis will soon roll out to public as a rail-hailing service — and Vegas is the first stop on the list.
“We are really excited to be rolling out to our first customers later this year,” says Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Zoox — noting that the public rollout will start in 2025 with a free “Zoox Explorers” program for those in Las Vegas who want to try the service.
Right now, Levinson says, Zoox currently has a couple dozen robotaxis in Las Vegas and San Francisco — and the company plans to expand that figure by “several fold” over the course of the year.
CES, the annual trade show of all things tech, opens on Tuesday, January 7th, following two days of media previews.
Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES brings attendees and exhibitors from around the world.
CES 2024 saw more than 138,000 attendees, organizers the CTA expect see at least that amount again for this year’s show.
Over 4,500 exhibitors, including 1,400 startups, are anticipated across 2.5 million square feet of floor space.
Big-name companies set to make appearances this year include Nvidia, Sony, Samsung, LG and L’Oréal.
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AP video by James Brooks
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