{"id":58710,"date":"2025-11-18T16:14:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/58710\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T16:14:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:14:34","slug":"zoox-launches-publicly-in-san-francisco-kind-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/58710\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoox launches publicly in San Francisco \u2014 kind of"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">Zoox will open its aloe-green robotaxis to select San Franciscans Tuesday. The Amazon-owned company is inviting people from its waitlist to take free rides and share their feedback before it expands its service. Zoox did not provide a timeline for citywide expansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">The zone of operation includes parts of SoMa, the Mission, and the Design District, where Zoox has been autonomously testing its driverless vehicles, which also lack steering wheels, for a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">Zoox plans to partner with local businesses to offer rides to employees. A partnership with Tartine Manufactory will deliver workers to the bakery\u2019s Mission plant, which is far from Muni and BART lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">\u201cWe 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,\u201d said CEO Aicha Evans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"South of Market, Design District, and Mission District are highlighted neighborhoods on a detailed city map with major streets labeled.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1673\" height=\"1787\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"block lazyloaded\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 1673 1787'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/-S3840x4102-FPNG.png\"\/>The service area includes parts of SoMa, the Mission, and the Design District. | Source: Courtesy of Zoox<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">The robotaxi wars are heating up in San Francisco. Alphabet-owned Waymo last week began operating on Bay Area freeways and now has a unified service area of <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/11\/12\/waymo-will-now-drive-bay-area-freeways-san-jos\/\" data-post-id=\"b068f656-ab04-4ebb-bebb-84286a895f2c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more than 260 square miles<\/a>. Tesla\u2019s semi-autonomous robotaxi service, which still uses a safety driver in the front seat and <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/09\/15\/tesla-waymo-robotaxi-race-elon-musk-google-robots\/\" data-post-id=\"6f7efe18-43c2-4969-b57b-f78b17f6aec8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has a waitlist<\/a>, operates on Bay Area bridges and runs from Marin to San Jos\u00e9, and Uber is set to launch a robotaxi in San Francisco <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/10\/29\/uber-launch-bay-area-robotaxi-service-nuru-lucid\/\" data-post-id=\"f3de4a5e-d477-4d47-8981-d80d4b67e5cf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">next year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">Zoox, based in Foster City, has tested its technology with safety drivers in San Francisco since 2017. Last month, the company began letting employees\u2019 friends and family test the service. Zoox went live in Las Vegas in September, offering free rides to select destinations around the Strip.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A small, futuristic autonomous vehicle drives through a sunny intersection near a Harrison street sign, with a cyclist and several parked cars nearby.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3840\" height=\"2160\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"block lazyloaded\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 3840 2160'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/-S3840x2160-FPNG.png\"\/>Zoox did not provide a timeline for citywide expansion.\u200b | Source: Courtesy of Zoox<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">Riders can sign up for the waitlist on the Zoox app. Zoox said people will be let off the waitlist based on their location and the addition of robotaxis to its fleet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">The Zoox vehicle, which looks like a futuristic horseless carriage, boasts wireless phone chargers, personal screens for each passenger to adjust the temperature in their quadrant, and twinkly overhead lights that turn on at night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">However, riders have noted that the backward-facing seats can lead to <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/10\/21\/zoox-launches-service-san-francisco-riders-challenging-waymo\/\" data-post-id=\"4d4810c0-2480-4c35-a956-20c8ee4cf36f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">motion sickness<\/a>; the Zoox app instructs riders to choose forward-facing seats if that\u2019s a concern. Two reporters from The Standard sat backward during a Zoox test ride this year and <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/06\/16\/zoox-robotaxi-ride-sf-waymo\/\" data-post-id=\"db2971a2-fbbb-4150-baab-36489651a9b4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">regretted the decision<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zoox will open its aloe-green robotaxis to select San Franciscans Tuesday. The Amazon-owned company is inviting people from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[8487,5989,101,103,102,104,106,105,1090,5987,14623],"class_list":{"0":"post-58710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-robotaxis","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-tesla","17":"tag-waymo","18":"tag-zoox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}