{"id":60427,"date":"2025-11-19T15:34:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/60427\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T15:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:34:37","slug":"that-zoox-robotaxi-ride-youve-been-clamoring-for-is-now-available-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/60427\/","title":{"rendered":"That Zoox Robotaxi Ride You’ve Been Clamoring for Is Now Available in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great news: you can now ride a Zoox robotaxi if you\u2019re in San Francisco. Yes, you heard me right! Zoox, I said. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I don\u2019t need to remind you that in 2020, Amazon bought an Australia-founded robotaxi company called Zoox for $1.2 billion<\/a>, and that not long after that acquisition, it rolled out a prototype<\/a> that looks like a Pok\u00e9mon<\/a> on wheels. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Zoox debuted a program called \u201cZoox Explorers\u201d that invites users in San Francisco to download the Zoox app, and get on the waitlist to potentially take a free ride in one of these\u2014I guess you could call it a \u201cbuggy,\u201d since Zoox doesn\u2019t want us to call it a car<\/a>. Using the app could already get you a free ride starting in September, but only if you were going up or down the Las Vegas Strip<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Zoox vehicle has a plausible reason for looking so cutesy. It\u2019s a purpose-built robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals. It resembles nothing so much as certain ferris wheel gondolas<\/a>\u2014an interior that only has room for two bench seats at opposite ends, where passengers face one another instead of all looking forward. <\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s Mission, SoMa, and Design District neighborhoods will be covered by the Zoox Explorers program\u2014areas where a Zoox could plausibly encounter a competing Waymo, and there\u2019s simply no telling what would happen then<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re on the waiting list, according to Zoox, the company will \u201cnotify you when you can join the preview and request a ride.\u201d Also, according to the Zoox site, the rider \u201ccan\u2019t take over the driving,\u201d but is provided controls for the temperature and music. You can also \u201cinitiate an emergency stop if you must exit the robotaxi.\u201d I can only assume this last feature is known as the \u201cpuke button\u201d around the Zoox office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Great news: you can now ride a Zoox robotaxi if you\u2019re in San Francisco. Yes, you heard me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[8487,5989,101,103,102,104,106,105,14623],"class_list":{"0":"post-60427","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-zoox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60427","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=60427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}