On Wednesday, at the techcrunch mobility 2022 conference held in San Mateo, California, zoox demonstrated the electric taxi and said it would be put into commercial use soon. It is a subsidiary of Amazon. The electric taxi displayed can accommodate up to 4 passengers, with large black sliding door, floor to ceiling window and beamforming speaker, which can send passengers to their destination completely independently.
The taxi is equipped with a built-in audio alarm to remind distracted pedestrians. The car is equipped with a 60W usb-c port. Zoox taxi cannot distinguish which is the front and which is the rear. It adopts symmetrical design. "Internally, we call it the north side and the south side," Jesse Levinson, zoox co-founder and chief technology officer, said in an interview on stage.
The feature of the design is that there is a sensor pod on each corner of the robot vehicle, which enables the vehicle to see all directions. It helps to "see everything in the back, including everything in the back".
"The shape of the vehicle is very suitable for autonomous driving because each sensor pod has a 270 degree field of view. Because there is one in every corner, we can not only see everything 360 degrees, but also have an overlapping and redundant field of view to help us see the things around us," Levinson said.
Each of the four seats has a seven inch screen the size of iPhone Quite. The simple interface allows passengers to operate the four zone climate control of the vehicle, view routes and change music.
This simple design is to reduce visual stimulation. Levinson said: "it's not about super fancy 3D games. We won't bombard you with things like screens and advertisements.