Amazon is paying $1Bn to acquire California-based self-driving start-up, Zoox.
Soumen's key takeaways:
- Amazon is less likely to be planning on entering the ride hailing market than using Zoox as a logical addition to its armoury of logistics options for last mile delivery.
- Zoox comes shortly after Amazon invested in another self-driving player, Aurora Innovation, in 2019. Back-to-back investments by Amazon underscores its interest in competing with leading autonomous vehicle (AV) players like Waymo, Tesla, GM Cruise and Baidu.
- Even during the Covid-19 outbreak in China, we saw White Rhino, Neolix, Meituan, Keenone Robotics and UDI were delivering groceries, medical supplies and foods by AVs. JD.com, the largest retailer in China also started delivery by AV fleets. Amazon is aiming to convert some of its fleet to AVs to save operational cost.