(Credit: Rakesh Agrawal)
People come to Las Vegas to experience all kinds of wonders: wandering around an Egyptian-style pyramid; eating dinner at a replica of the Eiffel Tower; watching fountains dance to music; and taking a gondola ride in a Venetian canal (if Venice were transplanted to the Mojave).
Vegas now has a new wonder: vehicles that look like oversized toasters that zip around town without a driver. These cars are from Zoox, an Amazon subsidiary.
I test rode Zoox on two trips around the Vegas strip on a course prescribed by the company and one trip from the Resorts World casino to the Luxor hotel, a distance of 3.17 miles.
I summoned a Zoox for a ride to Luxor like I would an Uber, Lyft, or Google’s Waymo: I opened the app and entered my origin and destination. The primary difference is that rides are limited to a few select destinations, not an entire service area. Another is that the service is currently free. Zoox has not provided any information on pricing once paid rides begin.
Unlike Waymos, which are retrofitted Jaguar SUVs, Zoox are purpose-built. The car has floor-to-ceiling clear doors on each side. There is no steering wheel and no pedals. The car can hold four people, two on each side facing each other. That is great for conversation, but if more than two of you get motion sickness when traveling backwards, Zoox is not the vehicle for you.
(Credit: Rakesh Agrawal )The seats in the Zoox vehicles are public-transit comfortable, which is to say they’re not. Within a minute of sitting down, my back was uncomfortable. Within 10 minutes, my butt was numb.
The interior is spartan. Each side of the Zoox has two Qi charging pads. Of course, there are cupholders. There is also a touch-screen panel that shows the time remaining on the trip. I could adjust the temperature and play music from its selected stations.
On one ride, my Zoox suddenly slowed to a crawl. I couldn’t see an obvious reason and Zoox public relations didn’t respond to a request for an explanation. It eventually unglitched and the rest of the ride was uneventful. On another ride, it correctly waited as an ambulance took a left across our path. The human driver behind us wasn’t patient, honking immediately after the ambulance passed.
One nice touch: Zoox doesn’t have the annoying ticking of the turn-signal indicator while you wait to make a turn. That shows the value of a purpose-built car; you don’t have to carry forward elements that were built for a different era.
Otherwise, the rides were unremarkable — which is the way it should be. After riding Waymos around San Francisco, I have no qualms about riding in autonomous vehicles (AVs). They are safe drivers, sometimes annoyingly so. AVs follow the rules as if a DMV tester were riding shotgun, evaluating every maneuver.
Not Quite Ready for Complicated Urban Environments
The Zoox is symmetric. There is no forwards or backwards; it can drive from either direction. In theory, it should provide better maneuverability in urban environments. It isn’t there yet.
After a Zoox dropped me off at the Luxor hotel, it stayed in the pickup and drop-off area. The Zoox was slightly blocked by a car to its left. As other cars lined up behind it, hotel guests started to wonder. “What is it?” “Is anybody in there?” After several minutes, the Zoox gave up and went around the car to its side.
(Credit: Rakesh Agrawal )One of the challenges of purpose-built vehicles is that riders won’t know how to react in an emergency. People can figure out how to exit an SUV. On a train, bus, or plane, there are bright red handles. On the Zoox I tested, there was a manual pull hidden behind the seats. I only saw them because I was specifically looking for them. A passenger in a panicked state after a crash would have trouble finding them.
Zoox is late to the nascent AV market. Zoox just announced its launch in Vegas; it is slated to offer service in San Francisco next, but no date has been announced.
Waymo is providing commercial service in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley. Waymo operates more than 2,000 cars across the country. The company has announced plans for six other cities through 2026.
My PCMag colleague Rob Pegoraro wrote about his first impressions with Waymo in July 2024. As of May 2025, Waymo had more than 10 million lifetime paid rides.
Waymo has started testing on freeways in San Francisco, LA, and Phoenix, with a mix of safety drivers and autonomous rides. Zoox didn’t respond to questions about any freeway plans.
Although I would be perfectly fine (if uncomfortable) riding a Zoox on surface streets, I would be reluctant to ride one on the freeway. As great a driver as Zoox might be, it can’t control the F-150 driving at 80mph. You can only go so far in fighting physics.
Airport rides are another common use case for for-hire vehicles. Waymo is targeting Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco airports. The company announced that it has completed mapping at SFO, and secured a testing and operations pilot permit from the city, but no launch date has been announced.
“After testing is complete, this permit allows for us to pilot commercial operations on a month-to month basis while we work with SFO on a sustained commercial operations permit,” said Chris Bonelli, a spokesman for Waymo.
Zoox didn’t respond when I asked about its airport plans.
Zoox isn’t my favorite vehicle, but it is a nice complement to the other transportation options we have. More choice is good for consumers. Competition with Waymo should drive prices down as more AVs hit the roads.
My decision on which to ride will come down to a mix of the three Cs: cost, comfort and convenience. Zoox won’t be able to compete on comfort or convenience in the short term. If it can’t compete on cost, it could become just a mirage on the Strip.