E-commerce giant Amazon.com is acquiring Zoox, an American company focused on developing self-driving vehicles. With Zoox's technology, Amazon will compete with, among others, delivery and taxi services that deploy autonomous vehicles in the US. These include Uber and Waymo.
The acquisition was announced by Amazon in a blog post. The company is leaving the acquisition amount open. However, several media including the Financial Times report that the e-commerce giant is paying over $1 billion for Zoox. Amazon wants to expand its autonomous vehicle business, something of which the Zoo acquisition is an important part.
Who is Zoox?
Zoox is based in the US state of Zoox. Founded in 2014 by Jesse Levinson and Tim Kentley-Klay, the company employed around 900 people in June. The organisation is led by CEO Aicha Evans and CTO Levinson. They will continue to lead Zoox's team after the acquisition.
Zoox focuses specifically on developing autonomous taxi vehicles. Many other companies working on this opt for an existing conventional vehicle. They then give this car autonomous functionality by adding sensors, smart algorithms and other additional technology. Zoox argues that such vehicles do not perform optimally because they are not specifically designed for autonomous driving. The company therefore plans to introduce a fully self-developed autonomous taxi vehicle later this year.
Testing on public roads
The company is currently conducting tests with Toyota Highlanders. These conventional SUVs have been fitted with a self-driving system developed in-house by Zoox. With these SUVs, Zoox is conducting tests on public roads in the US cities of San Francisco and Las Vegas.
"Zoox is working hard to imagine, invent and design a world-class autonomous driving experience," said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Customer at Amazon. "Like Amazon, Zoox is passionate about innovation and its customers. We are excited to help the talented Zoox team realise their vision in the coming years." Amazon stresses its commitment to continuing and developing Zoox's plans around self-driving technology.
Strengthen impact
"The acquisition strengthens Zoox's impact in the self-driving vehicle market," said Zoox CEO Evans. "We have made great strides with our focused approach to safe and autonomous mobility. Our exceptionally talented team works every day to realise this vision. And now we have an even greater opportunity to realise a fully autonomous future."
"Since founding Zoox six years ago, we have been committed to our completely new approach to autonomous mobility," says Zoox CTO Levinson. "Amazon's support accelerates our path to delivering safe, clean and enjoyable transport to the world."
Lots of competition
Amazon is taking its first steps into the self-driving taxi market with Zoox. Many parties operate in this market. These include the aforementioned Uber and Waymo, but also General Motors subsidiary Cruise, Lyft and Ford and Volkswagen subsidiary ArgoAI. Earlier, Aurora was also active in this market, but this company announced this week that it was shifting its focus to self-driving trucks.
Waymo is currently the only company offering a commercial autonomous taxi service. The company does this in Phoenix in the US state of Arizona. In most cases, there is a human driver in Waymo's autonomous vehicle who can intervene if necessary.
Sued by Tesla
Zoox previously had a run-in with Tesla. In March 2019, for instance, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Zoox and several former Tesla employees who joined Zoox. Tesla accused them of stealing intellectual property and trade secrets from Tesla in late 2019 and early 2019.
The parties reached a settlement in April this year, with Zoox confessing that four employees took confidential documents from Tesla. As part of this settlement, Zoox paid Tesla an undisclosed amount of money. Zoox also conducted an internal audit to ensure that confidential Tesla information was no longer in the possession or used by Zoox employees.
The $1.2 billion Amazon is reportedly paying for Zoox, by the way, is a relatively low amount. The company was still valued at $3.2 billion during a 2018 investment round.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
