Amazon to buy Zoox for $1B, a self-driving car startup with Apple lineage
Online retail giant Amazon has reportedly agreed to pay over a billion dollars to buy Zoox, which was an early entrant into the autonomous car industry, and has previously hired away "Apple Car" engineers.
Zoom engineers tease the company's forthcoming bidirectional self-driving vehicle
Amazon appears set to compete with "Apple Car" in the race to develop self-driving cars, as it reportedly spends in excess of a billion dollars to buy Zoox. If correct, Amazon would own a firm that has a 1,000 staff, and a strong track record in autonomous driving technology.
According to The Information, Zoox has agreed to be bought. Neither side has publicly confirmed the sale, or the price.
However, an unnamed source has told The Information that the amount Amazon is paying will mean that Zoox's investors will get their money back. Zoox previously raised $1 billion in equity and convertible debt.
Zoox has seemingly been testing vehicles since at least 2017, when California revised its regulations over allowing remote control monitoring of test cars. The company has reportedly developed a self-driving electric car that has no steering wheel.
It also has no obvious front or back, and can therefore be driven in either direction, or swap between them as it encounters obstacles.
An acquisition of Zoox would not be Amazon's first foray into self-driving technologies. According to The Information, it has previously invested in self-driving truck firm, Aurora Innovation. Reportedly Amazon has also worked with Aurora Innovation's competitors as part of an experiment into on-road conditions and tests.
Zoox had been expected to publicly unveil its self-driving prototype later in 2020. However, related plans to launch a "robotaxi" service this year have already been postponed because of software issues.
The 1,000 employees at Zoox include at least 17 ex-Apple engineers, who left the "Apple Car" project in 2017 to join the startup. At the time, it was reported that Apple was scaling back its "Project Titan" car work.
It also followed a round of redundancies in late 2016, when Apple revamped its plans and hired retired Apple executive Bob Mansfield to lead the project.
Zoom engineers tease the company's forthcoming bidirectional self-driving vehicle
Amazon appears set to compete with "Apple Car" in the race to develop self-driving cars, as it reportedly spends in excess of a billion dollars to buy Zoox. If correct, Amazon would own a firm that has a 1,000 staff, and a strong track record in autonomous driving technology.
According to The Information, Zoox has agreed to be bought. Neither side has publicly confirmed the sale, or the price.
However, an unnamed source has told The Information that the amount Amazon is paying will mean that Zoox's investors will get their money back. Zoox previously raised $1 billion in equity and convertible debt.
Zoox has seemingly been testing vehicles since at least 2017, when California revised its regulations over allowing remote control monitoring of test cars. The company has reportedly developed a self-driving electric car that has no steering wheel.
It also has no obvious front or back, and can therefore be driven in either direction, or swap between them as it encounters obstacles.
An acquisition of Zoox would not be Amazon's first foray into self-driving technologies. According to The Information, it has previously invested in self-driving truck firm, Aurora Innovation. Reportedly Amazon has also worked with Aurora Innovation's competitors as part of an experiment into on-road conditions and tests.
Zoox had been expected to publicly unveil its self-driving prototype later in 2020. However, related plans to launch a "robotaxi" service this year have already been postponed because of software issues.
The 1,000 employees at Zoox include at least 17 ex-Apple engineers, who left the "Apple Car" project in 2017 to join the startup. At the time, it was reported that Apple was scaling back its "Project Titan" car work.
It also followed a round of redundancies in late 2016, when Apple revamped its plans and hired retired Apple executive Bob Mansfield to lead the project.
Comments
Second, Amazon's revenue and profits are largely derived from peddling cheap Chinese crap, exploiting workers, offering horrible customer service, taking advantage of its massive scale to extract tax and other concessions from cities, cheaping out on things such as delivery (instead of using reputable and competent companies like UPS and Fedex), and stealing IP from their third-party sellers. It has little to do with "acquiring tech."
Amazon's acquisition of this company has more to do with continuing its trend of replacing competent services such as UPS with its own in-house garbage delivery. In other words, going "cheap" as you call it.
Amazon has been the top or nearly so in brand rankings for a few years now. I think they're even more loved than Apple. Buying Zoox for $1B may be a bargain depending on how Amazon puts it to work.
As for their in-house delivery, off-topic but still, while it started out shaky, at least in my area, they have their feet under them now and a lot of my orders are now getting here the next morning via their own delivery trucks. I have no problem with them at all that I don'[t also have with other multinationals. What retailer (or manufacturer for that matter) isn't taking advantage of low-paid workers "in order to pass the savings on to you" LOL? Same as it's ever been. If anything they're taking the same road as other big techs: Way too much power and money for comfort and undue influence in the marketplace because of their wealth and resources.
Amazon in general seems to find a way to put their acquisitions to good use.
Looks like someone has Tesla envy.