San Francisco is about to become even more crowded with autonomous vehicles as Amazon’s Zoox opens its robotaxi service to members of the public for the first time in the city.
Beginning Tuesday, selected users from the company’s waitlist gained access to free rides in Zoox’s distinctive, steering-wheel-free vehicles as part of its expanding early rider program.
Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said the rollout marks a major step forward. “We 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,” she noted.
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The company will remove people from the waitlist based on criteria such as location, with the first service zone covering the South of Market, Mission, and Design District neighborhoods. Zoox hasn’t disclosed how many riders will be admitted initially, but said more will be added as the fleet grows.
The company currently operates around 50 robotaxis, split between Las Vegas and San Francisco. It launched a free ride service on the Las Vegas Strip in September, where thousands of visitors have already tried the autonomous shuttles. Zoox says the reaction has been “overwhelmingly positive,” with riders consistently saying they prefer its group-oriented, lounge-style cabin to the feel of a conventional car.
A Different Kind of Robotaxi
Zoox’s vehicles stand out sharply from the rest of the industry’s offerings. Unlike Waymo, Tesla, or Cruise — whose autonomous systems are installed onto traditional car bodies — Zoox manufactures its vehicles from the ground up, removing everything associated with human driving. There is no steering wheel, no pedals, and no driver’s seat. Instead, passengers sit facing one another in a rectangular, gondola-like cabin with large windows and a compact exterior footprint.
The design reflects Zoox’s goal of building a shared mobility service rather than a modified consumer car. The company has been testing autonomous systems in San Francisco since 2017, but the robotaxi now being deployed represents years of reengineering toward a fully purpose-built experience.
A Growing, Heated Competition
Zoox’s arrival slots into a highly competitive and rapidly shifting robotaxi landscape — one that has seen triumphs, setbacks, and aggressive expansion across the past decade.
Waymo remains the dominant player in San Francisco, with more than 1,000 autonomous vehicles operating across the Bay Area as of November. Its fleet consists of Jaguar I-PACE SUVs retrofitted with sensors and computing hardware. Waymo now offers fully driverless rides in five major US cities, giving it the largest footprint of any autonomous ride-hailing service in the country.
Tesla has also moved into the robotaxi space, beginning a pilot program in Austin and the Bay Area. These rides still include safety operators, but the company says it is preparing for a future fleet based on its dedicated robotaxi vehicle, which is still under development.
Uber, after exiting its self-driving program in 2020, is attempting a comeback. It plans to launch a robotaxi service next year using vehicles from Lucid Motors and Nuro, marking a renewed push to compete in the market it once tried to dominate.
Cruise, the most prominent rival to Waymo until last year, saw its rapid expansion collapse after safety incidents forced it to suspend operations and eventually shut down its robotaxi program entirely under GM.
In this context, Zoox enters the field as a fresh but well-funded challenger with a radically different vehicle design — and the backing of Amazon, which bought the company in 2020. That financial muscle gives Zoox more room to scale than many smaller startups that burned out during the autonomous-driving boom.
How Zoox’s Entry Reshapes the Competition
Bringing more San Franciscans into its vehicles gives Zoox a chance to prove it can compete in a city that has become both the testing ground and the battleground for autonomous mobility. The move increases pressure on incumbents like Waymo, which has enjoyed near-monopoly visibility since Cruise’s collapse.
Zoox’s shuttle-like design also adds a new dimension to consumer choice. While Waymo and Tesla offer rides that feel like enhanced versions of traditional cars, Zoox promises a shared, cabin-style environment designed from scratch for autonomy. If San Franciscans find the design more comfortable or social, Zoox could carve out a distinct niche in a crowded market.
The expansion also intensifies competition over data — the lifeblood of autonomous driving. Every ride Zoox provides gives it more real-world training data to improve its systems. That advantage helped Waymo pull ahead earlier, and Zoox is now racing to close the gap.
On top of that, a thriving multi-player market benefits cities and regulators, who hold the belief that robust competition prevents any single company from dominating access, pricing, or public negotiations. Zoox’s rollout helps restore competitive balance in a city that previously saw two major players reduced to one after Cruise was sidelined.