Decoder with Nilay Patel Recode Decode: Aicha Evans and Jesse Levinson
Mar 6, 2020
Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox, and Jesse Levinson, CTO and co-founder, dive into the future of autonomous vehicles. Evans shares how she transitioned from Intel to Zoox after a pivotal leadership change. They discuss their innovative design for a fully autonomous robo-taxi aimed at urban ride-sharing, intentionally avoiding pitfalls like the Uber Pool problem. The duo also tackles the significant funding challenges in the competitive auto industry and explores how Zoox plans to revolutionize urban mobility with safety and efficiency in mind.
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Ground-Up Approach
- Zoox was founded on the insight that retrofitting autonomy onto existing cars wasn't optimal.
- Building a new vehicle type, unconstrained by passenger car designs, allows for better optimization for autonomous mobility.
Carriage Design
- Zoox's car is designed like a carriage without horses, bidirectional and symmetrical.
- It prioritizes a comfortable, high-end experience for passengers, with features like air conditioning.
Best of Both Worlds
- Zoox aims to combine the benefits of ride-hailing services like Uber and personal car ownership.
- It seeks to increase service quality and safety while lowering costs by removing the driver.