Amazon to buy Zoox for $1B, a self-driving car startup with Apple lineage

Zoom engineers tease the company's forthcoming bidirectional self-driving vehicle

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.

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.

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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.

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9 Comments

gmgravytrain

said about 3 years ago

That's the thing with Amazon. Jeff Bezos is not cheap when it comes to acquiring tech which is another reason why Amazon is worth as much as it is. Amazon doesn't let their money just sit in a bank doing next to nothing. Apple is scaling back while Amazon is scaling up. Whether Amazon gets much out of this purchase, I don't know for sure, but big investors like the idea of Amazon grabbing technology to grow the company. Self-driving cars may be a long way off for all I know and of no immediate use to Apple. As an Apple shareholder, it's disappointing that Apple may be leaving good tech on the table and letting Amazon get ahead of them. A billion dollars should be almost nothing for Apple to spend. Anyway, what's done is done and I'm just expressing my opinion. I suppose Apple knows what it needs to do better than I do.

flydog

said about 3 years ago

gmgravytrain said:

That's the thing with Amazon. Jeff Bezos is not cheap when it comes to acquiring tech which is another reason why Amazon is worth as much as it is.

Ummm what? First, Amazon's "worth" is based on what people are willing to pay for a stock, not on its "acquiring tech."

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.

Kuyangkoh

said about 3 years ago

Hmmm, Tesla had semi-self driving cars already in the road....interesting to find out later who will get there first....

gatorguy

said about 3 years ago

flydog said:

gmgravytrain said:

That's the thing with Amazon. Jeff Bezos is not cheap when it comes to acquiring tech which is another reason why Amazon is worth as much as it is.

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.

Ummm, What?
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.

foregoneconclusion

said about 3 years ago

flydog said: Ummm what? First, Amazon's "worth" is based on what people are willing to pay for a stock, not on its "acquiring tech."

Pretty much. The Amazon strategy is to constantly expand in order to convince investors that they're still relevant. The Whole Foods acquisition was like that. At the time, people actually believed Amazon would turn Whole Foods into a bargain shopping nirvana and disrupt the grocery business. Instead, they've just been slowly modifying Whole Foods stores into the grocery version of an Amazon Warehouse.