Self-driving cars get one step closer to your driveway as Zoox raises $200M

self-driving-cars

I have a running bet with someone that I actually think I’m going to lose. The bet was that in five years we’ll be able to take a self driving car from his house to a restaurant. I told him that seems too soon, 8-10 years seems more realistic.

zoox

Today Zoox raised $200M at a billion dollar valuation. Don’t know what Zoox is? They are the latest startup to jump in the ring with Google, Apple, Uber and a host of other companies that are getting ready to disrupt the auto world in a major way. You probably haven’t heard of them because they’ve been in stealth mode for a while now:

Zoox has been working in secret on a fully autonomous car for years. In 2013, the company debuted some splashy renderingsof the car, nicknamed “Boz,” before reverting back into stealth mode. According to IEEE, the car is designed to not have windshields or a steering wheel or break pedal. Instead, it can drive in any direction while passengers sit inside, facing each other. (Source – Business Insider)

The CEO of Zoox believes that self-driving cars are ultimately going to make the world a better place by taking humans out of the equation.

“the human driver is the biggest danger in autonomous vehicles.”
(Tim Kentley-Klay, founder, CEO and visionary of Zoox)

A year ago I thought we were easily more than five years away from having self-driving cars be a viable form of transportation. Now I think we could be less than three. That being said, I don’t see technology holding self-driving cars back, instead the challenge will be working with all the regulation, insurance, and all the other laundry-list of things that we’ll have to figure-out in order to actually get self-driving cars out to the masses. However there’s no doubt about it, self-driving cars are coming, the question is – when?

What do you think?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton