Amazon is now embarking on autonomous mobility by buying Californian start-up Zoox

We recently reported that Amazon plans to enter the alcohol delivery market in India. Well, it would seem that the online sales giant wants to widen its business sectors to the maximum since no later than Friday, June 26, 2020, Amazon announces that it has acquired the Californian start-up Zoox, specialized in Autonomous road taxis.

Although the exact amount of the transaction has not been disclosed, Reuters reports that Amazon acquired Zoox for more than a billion of dollars. Note that in 2018, the value of the start-up was estimated at more than $ 3 billion.

Credits Unsplash

Amazon's interest in this acquisition? The online retail giant will now be able to use autonomous technology in carpooling and / or in its distribution network.

Amazon is investing more and more in the autonomous mobility sector

Note that this is hardly Amazon's first investment in the automotive sector. In early 2019 , the online retailer had actually invested $ 530 million in the start-up of the projectand autonomous car from Aurora Innovation.

With regard to Zoox in particular, the American company, based in California, was created in 2014 and aimed to to develop software and hardware to create electric robot taxis that could be called via a smartphone application launched from this year 2020.

Zoox could help Amazon keep its promise

In any case, even if Amazon acquired Zoox, the two companies will remain separate and Aicha Evans, the current general manager of Zoox as well as its co-founder and chief technology officer Jesse Levinson will continue to lead the company.

However, it may well be that Amazon aims to make Zoox the competitor of Waymo, the Google subsidiary in the autonomous mobility. But in any case, Amazon could use Zoox technology to deliver to carss automated and non-polluting.

Especially since electric delivery vehicles seem to be a project dear to Amazon's heart, to the point where elle ordered 100,000 vans from the electric car manufacturer Rivian by 2030 to deliver on its promise of zero carbon emissions by 2040.