I Spent A Week Day-drinking in a Zoox Around Vegas So That You Don't Have To

I was recently in Las Vegas for an annual pilgrimage to the O.G. BSides and DEF CON security conferences, when I saw a boxy thing roll by and was like "OH YEAH! Vegas has Zoox!"

WTF is a Zoox??

Zoox is a (purporterly) autonomous vehicle made by an Amazon subsidiary of the same name, "designed around you". Its purpose is to act like a cab/ride-share, sans human driver (it has no steering wheel or pedals or other "traditional" controls), and it looks like this:

Zoox in all its glory

And this is the experience riding in a Zoox (note the touchscreen control panel next to each seat):

Fancy drivin'...

Where TF is a Zoox??

Zoox currently operates in Las Vegas and San Francisco, with plans to expand to Austin and Miami markets. In Vegas, they were operating free-of-charge during the time I was there (they started charging fares on Monday August 10th), and they had set drop-off and pick-up points. Here's what that looked like in the Zoox app (which you DL and use for rides):

Brought to you by the low-battery gang...

How TF was the Zoox??

At Hacker Summer Camp, I managed to squeeze in 14 Zoox rides (not a small feat considering the difficulty in scheduling, see the cons section below), which worked out to almost 50 total miles and a hair over 4.5 hours in a Zoox.

Some of the features:

• seats four (seatbelts required before it will start the ride)
• timeless, futuristic box shape
• double doors on both sides (each slightly --ever SO slightly-- reminiscent of how Lamborghini Countach 'scissor' doors work --pop out and move when opened--, albeit in a decidedly LESS cool way)
• low floorboard (making it easy to enter and exit)
• some space for bags/luggage to sit in the middle
• phone charger for each seat (USB-C and wireless)
• climate control for each seat (temperature and fan) 
• cup holder for each seat (and Zoox doesn't wince or judge you for brining an open beverage into the vehicle!)
• reading light for each seat
• glass panels in the roof (they don't cover or open, so not a sunroof or moonroof, I don't think)
• user selectable LED color 'theme'
• starfield in the headliner at night
• ability to pair phone via Bluetooth and play your own music (their user-specific BT endpoint means you only have to pair one time to one Zoox, and then all your subsequent Zoox rentals will "just work" with your BT, no need to pair again)
• 4 wheel "crab walk"-capable steering 🦀

A few observations: 

• the driving algorithm is not as aggressive as, say, what you can get out of Tesla FSD (which was fine by me)
• max speed of 34 MPH (that I saw), which was OK since it was staying off freeways and mostly in stop-and-go traffic on/around the Strip
• music volume was decently loud (and OK quality) when cranked all the way up (e.g. both the phone volume and volume on the control panel maxed out)
• A/C did OK when set to coldest AND when the fan was turned up to high on the control panel, even in the legendary Vegas summer heat

Some of my stats:

• longest ride (distance): 4.32 miles in 22 minutes
• longest ride (time): 4.18 miles in 37 minutes
• total number of miles over 14 rides: 49.37 miles
• total amount of time spent in a Zoox over 14 rides: 4.55 hours
• average overall miles-per-hour (silly calculation): 10.85 MPH

Some cons:

• OMG scheduling was **AWFUL** (sometimes 1-2 hours just to get offered a ride, and THEN an additional 45+ minutes for the Zoox to actually arrive; bonus points for times where it would just randomly change from 45 minutes to 10 minutes and you were 15 mintues away from the pick up spot 🫠 )
• not accepting an offered ride within a few minutes would lose your spot and you'd have to wait another 1-2 hours AGAIN
• inflexibility with pick-up and drop-off points was annoying (if it wasn't on the map, you couldn't get the Zoox there)
• the app automatically picking the "closest" pick-up point even if you wanted a different one
• the app not providing notifications (or not working on my phone, anyway; had to watch the app real-time to see what was up, like when an offered ride came up or my Zoox ETA changed randomly)
• they only drive from 11am to 1am each day

WTH Did I Conclude RE: Zoox

Honestly, this is a thoughtful design to make something easy for people to get in and out of, with little touches like wireless phone charging at each seat, starfield headliner, and listening to your own jams on not-awful speakers that improve the overall experience. It's not gonna blow your socks off with awesomeness, but it'll get you somewhere pretty safely without jarring surprises/adventures. If the pricing is comparable to Lyft, I'd pay for Zoox rides.

That said, they GOTTA sort out the scheduling/hailing issues, which might relax a bit now that they are charging real money and demand will likely drop some. But if those issues don't organically decay away, they'll have to improve that (via additional vehicles in the fleet or scheduling algorithm improvements or whatever), otherwise people will just keep using Lyft and Uber and taxis rather than a janky, disjointed, wait-forever experience (that may or may not actually be autonomous 🛸).

BONUS

Shout-out to these guys who tried to physically to break into my Zoox before it had parked. Class act.