We Rode Zoox and Motional in Las Vegas. One Is Ready to Scale, One Is Not. Field Report

Key Zoox and Motional Las Vegas Field Report Findings

Zoox and Motional Las Vegas Field Report

After spending the day riding up and down the Las Vegas Strip riding in Motional and Zoox robotaxis and conducting depot reconnaissance across the market, we identified several operational realities that distinguish Las Vegas from every other autonomy market we have covered to date.

Zoox Wait Times

In Las Vegas, Zoox operates service between 11am and 1am local time. Right at 11am local time, we tried to order a Zoox and were unable to until roughly 11:17am local time, when the app said service was available. At that hour, under what we assume we were one of the first riders for the day, the wait time was 67 minutes.

Rather than wait at Resorts World, we decided to run an experiment. Could we go from Resorts World to the Luxor (3.2 miles) in a Motional robotaxi both ways in two different vehicles, playing the Uber roulette game, and make it back in time. Indeed we succeeded. Both times, we were paired with a Motional robotaxi on our first try and we were able to go down and back with 21 minutes to spare before the Zoox vehicle arrived.

Motional Ride: Engineering Prowess on Display

In order to ride in a Motional in Las Vegas you have to use the Uber app and play the Uber roulette game and hope that you get paired with a Motional robotaxi, which is built on the Hyundai IONIQ 5 platform.

Our first ride from Resorts World to the Luxor routed us behind the Strip on Frank Sinatra Drive. It was an uneventful ride until a taxi tried to cut us off as we were moving into the left-turning lane. The taxi attempted to cut off the Motional, forcing the safety driver to take control.

Our second Motional ride was from Luxor to Resorts World where we were routed down Las Vegas Boulevard. The vehicle made the left onto the Strip and drove the length of it without a single intervention. No hard braking, no hesitation, no safety driver input. It was a very smooth ride that demonstrated the engineering prowess of Hyundai.

Zoox Ride: A Disneyland Experience

Zoox, despite the excessive wait times, has done a good job of securing a dedicated, Zoox branded drop-off and pickup zone directly to the left of the Resorts World south entrance. The location saves individuals from the five minute walk down to the Lyft branded drop-off and pick-up zone where you meet the Motional vehicle.

Inside the vehicle is a different story. The seats are made of a smooth material that, combined with the bench-style layout and the off head-safety bar, made it feel like sliding around on a roller coaster. There is no Spotify sync and one of the phone charging pads did not work, even after repositioning our phone many times.

Our ride down the Strip felt like a novelty, almost as if we were riding the monorail at Disneyland. There was no utility to it as we could only choose select destinations and we were not able to change the destination at any point during the ride.

When we arrived at Luxor, we spoke with other riders and they were just there to experience it and then go on with their days. We noticed the same individuals at both Resorts World and the Luxor, which reinforced our belief that Zoox is viewed as an attraction, not as a utility in Las Vegas at this time. It is merely a Disneyland ride in an adult Disneyland now.

Zoox Las Vegas Depot

The Zoox depot in Las Vegas is located in an industrial distribution area next to a Pepsi distribution center. The facility appeared to be over 100,000 square feet with high-security. From the street, we were unable to view any vehicles as they appeared to be in the rear of the building behind concealed fencing. However, we did confirm that this is the depot, from business permits and the company’s name on the entrance.

While we did not see any vehicles while we observed the depot from the public road, we headed down the street to the gas station and at what appeared to be shift-change time, we noticed dozens of the Zoox Highlanders entering and leaving the depot, but we did not see one of the purpose built Zoox vehicles during this time.

Motional Las Vegas Depot

Motional hosted us at their facility near the Las Vegas Airport, where the company confirmed that their Las Vegas fleet is currently over 100 vehicles and driver-out testing is already underway in the market. One detail that we were able to confirm with the Motional executive team is that the Motional vehicles operating in Las Vegas are factory-built at the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS).

Motional’s robotaxis are not upfitted and the way the autonomous driving stack is integrated into the vehicle is different than Hyundai’s robotaxi partners.

Nuro Las Vegas Test Track

While we were in town, we visited Nuro at their Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The facility is roughly 80 acres and the track is fully dynamic, allowing Nuro to change test conditions and deploy the vehicle at high-speeds. While we were there, one of the new Nuro/Lucid vehicles was out on the track testing with a safety driver and soon Nuro will be testing driver-out on this track as they prepare to launch commercial service later this year on the Uber network.

Strategic Outlook

The Las Vegas market is emerging as a critically important robotaxi market as Motional is preparing to launch driver-out commercial service on the Uber network later this year, Waymo is planning to launch commercial operations and soon Tesla will enter the market.

When Motional, Zoox, Tesla, and Waymo all begin to operate commercial service in Sin City, the conversation will shift from experience to utility and pricing. Both Motional will be operating on Uber as well as Zoox, in addition Zoox will be operating their own app as well.

As both services scale in Las Vegas, be sure to watch and see how Uber allocates vehicles, what the service area looks like and what the hours of that service become. Furthermore, watch to see if Waymo eats into both Uber and Zoox’s marketshare and the big thing to watch is what happens when Tesla launches Robotaxi in the market?

There is a lot to watch for in the Las Vegas market and when Waymo opens commercial service, we will be heading back and producing another field report.