Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas • Hacker News Board

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#51

Post by rangestransform » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 3:58 PM UTC

bighead1 wrote: post #30

giancarlostoro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? You realize there are people who cannot legally drive for whom a robotaxi is a life changing achievement?

Why wouldn't they just take a taxi driven by a human? Or a bus (also driven by a human)?

> take a taxi driven by a human?

expensive, sometimes they sexually harass/assault the passengers, sometimes the drivers are also dangerously tired

> Or a bus (also driven by a human)?

slow (especially because USians oppose optimal stop spacing) and dirty, no door-to-door air conditioning, not separated from poor people

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#52

Post by jewel » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 3:59 PM UTC

The front-to-back symmetry is interesting. It may cause some confusion for other drivers, in some limited circumstances, when they can't tell which way the vehicle is facing.

It appears, based on my study of the footage on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRW8bfy4kE, that it could possibly switch which side is the front and the back by just changing the color of the lights. With RGB LEDs that would be pretty easy to do. But my question is, when would that be useful?

It would be neat that it could pull into a driveway and then leave in "reverse", but that doesn't seem like it'd come up that often for a robotaxi.

The back wheels look like they can steer. That's useful for parking in tight spaces.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#53

Post by _fat_santa » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

orionsbelt wrote: post #3

I have a good sense of what Waymo and Tesla’s capabilities are, but not Zoox. Can anyone here clue me in on how Zoox compares?

I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around, we actually got stuck behind one trying to make a right turn onto LV Boulevard (the strip) and seemed to be far to cautious.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#54

Post by techterrier » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

cyanydeez wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but no. Yes, they'll do it for now. No, once they're as normal as humans, they'll definitely be tweaked to maximize profit. And that will include as much speeding as risk/reward dictates. So yeah, they'll do the same thing as humans eventually.

> that will include as much speeding as risk/reward dictates Speeding can usually be brushed off as carelessness. Where it can’t, we charge it more harshly. A robot programmed to speed serves a jury mens rea on a plate.

He means that robotaxi companies will make more money if they can fit more 'rides' into a given period. It won't be long before some mba big brain figures out lobbying for increased speed limits will do just that.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

rangestransform wrote: post #51

bighead1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they just take a taxi driven by a human? Or a bus (also driven by a human)?

> take a taxi driven by a human? expensive, sometimes they sexually harass/assault the passengers, sometimes the drivers are also dangerously tired > Or a bus (also driven by a human)? slow (especially because USians oppose optimal stop spacing) and dirty, no door-to-door air conditioning, not separated from poor people

> slow (especially because USians oppose optimal stop spacing) and dirty

It’s slow because it must solve for many possible routes. Cabs are point to point. A rideshared cab, moreover, knows ex ante where its customer is going and, in a city, where its next customer is.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#56

Post by ricree » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

Just about a year and a half too late for https://longbets.org/712/

Although from the article, it sounds like this might not be servicing a wide enough area to win the bet even if the time was extended a couple years.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#57

Post by leetharris » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

techterrier wrote: post #17

Hopefully some genius will figure out a way of joining lots of these together into a 'gigapod'. That might have enough capacity to actually work at city scale.

I am getting so unbelievably tired of this smug comment. It reeks of reddit spam.

We all know trains would be nice. Unless you have some plan to rework our government into something that will allow for innovation here, then I prefer to see progress, even if it's not ideal.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#58

Post by echelon » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

maelito wrote: post #4

The most useful thing I expect from robotaxis is speed regulations. What's considered normal for humans, driving higher than the speed limits, will not for automatic cars.

I'm reminded of this prescient scene from the movie Logan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwc1XIOFME

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#59

Post by PhunkyPhil » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #11

What's interesting is that about 80% Tesla's entire valuation is FSD and Optimus, and the underlying assumption with FSD is that it'll magically turn on for all Tesla's in a day and they'll have a monopoly and extract all the profit needed for that valuation. Apart from any comparisons with Waymo, I suspect self-driving will broadly follow other AI tech, where we'll see a proliferation of competitive self-driving tec…

I think self-driving targets a problem that doesn't really exist. The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task, it's simply the amount of time spent in a car, which FSD doesn't address.

Re: Zoox robotaxi launches in Las Vegas

#60

Post by _fat_santa » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around. They seem to have a mix of robotaxis (like the ones pictured) and decked out Toyota Highlanders that look like Waymos but not as well "packaged", though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel.

Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only operate in/around the strip). On the one hand all they really have to navigate is the strip which is just one giant straight road. But on the other hand most casinos on the strip have their entrances in the back and once you get off the strip and try to go up to one of these casinos it's a maze of roads. But that only speaks to the technical hurdles, I'm sure a big part of the calculus is that Vegas is very much a "novelty" kind of place and folks are much more likely to give it a shot when there.