Amazon In Advanced Talks To Buy Self-Driving-Car Tech Company Zoox

Amazon is in advanced talks to buy Zoox in a move that would expand the e-commerce giant's reach in autonomous-vehicle technology. The Wall Street Journal reports: The companies are discussing a deal that would value Zoox at less than the $3.2 billion it achieved in a funding round in 2018, according to people familiar with the matter. An agreement may be weeks away, one of the people cautioned, and the discussions could still fall apart. Zoox, founded in 2014, has been working to develop the hardware and software needed to create electric-powered, robot taxis that would be summoned by smartphone app starting this year. A successful deal could give new life to a once-high-profile startup that has seen its fortunes dim as it struggled to raise money.

In other news..

[Fly Swatter]

The price of ZX stock gained today, and there is confusion as to why trading of ZX has been suspended.

-short ZOOM now!!

Zzzxx

[rmdingler]

Zx stock is a darling bet against the imperfect Americans, and by extension, the nations they come from ....

.

Company Name

[raftpeople]

When they were naming the company, these were the other contenders:
fleeb
gromp
chewbacca
...

chewbacca is owned by Disney now!

[Joe_Dragon]

chewbacca is owned by Disney now!

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

The world ran out of good names ages ago. Especially once the internet came along and everything went global. There just aren't enough pronounceable combinations of the 26 available letters and in fact there are many companies called Zoox just operating in different business areas.

If you hated Musk ...

[AlanObject]

For those who always thought Tesla was overrated and Musk overextended you would have loved to rag on Zoox had they had even 1/10th the media exposure.

Not only a self-driving car with two front ends -- they were going to 3D print everything.

Amazing they lasted that long.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Social media fact check correction required:

Tesla is overextended. Musk is overrated.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Elizabeth Holmes should have started this kind of company.....she would have been just as successful but would have stayed out of jail.

Re:

[stephanruby]

Zoox is still a pretty tiny startup. We see them in San Francisco, but they limit themselves to a 10 block radius. Their burn rate must have been pretty low, since they don't seem to have achieved much of anything yet.

Delivery Vehicles

[cusco]

I'd bet they want automated delivery vehicles for their Scout robot. The bar for something like that would be considerably lower than for a vehicle that carries people.

Yes, I work at Amazon, but in physical security. I have nothing to do with that part of the business, this is just my personal guess.