Zoox Las Vegas Airport Field Report

Special Field Correspondent David Moss took a paid Zoox robotaxi ride from Resorts World Las Vegas to Harry Reid International Airport, documenting the booking process, in-ride experience, and return trip. The first ride featured repeated phantom braking, a missed turn that required navigating through an intersection mid-maneuver, and persistent false seatbelt alerts triggered by a backpack.

The return ride was notably smoother, handling construction zones and a bus obstacle without issue, though the wait time ballooned from 28 minutes to roughly 45 minutes. Moss notes that Zoox now offers paid rides in Las Vegas with expanded hours, and that the airport features what he calls the best rideshare signage he has ever seen.

Key Field Report Questions Answered

Field Report Topics & Timestamps

[0:00] Booking Zoox at Resorts World

At Resorts World in Las Vegas, David Moss books a Zoox to Harry Reid International Airport through the app. He notes Zoox now offers paid rides and also operates in San Francisco, with Austin and Miami coming soon. He chooses Terminal 1 for Delta from the new Hilton side pickup zone. The fare is $30 through Apple Pay with a 26 minute estimated wait, and service hours were expanded that week.

[1:32] Vehicle Arrival and Boarding

The Zoox arrives on schedule. David opens the doors from the app, sets his backpack on a seat, closes the doors, buckles in and starts the ride, which shows a 21 minute trip estimate.

[3:33] Seatbelt Sensor Issue and Zoox Support Call

The vehicle keeps warning that his seatbelt is unfastened and threatens to end the ride, even though he is buckled. He suspects the backpack on the seat is the cause. Zoox support calls him on its own to remind him about seatbelts, and he explains the false alert. The warnings continue after he moves the backpack.

[5:52] Outbound Route to Harry Reid International Airport

The vehicle avoids Las Vegas Boulevard and takes a wide L shaped route, with views of Fontainebleau, Caesars Palace, Aria and Bellagio. It drives slightly under the 35 mph limit and draws a honk, probably for going slowly. David tests the cabin. The music selection stays on one station, the climate controls work, and there are no heated or cooled seats and no trunk.

[8:34] Phantom Braking and Missed Turns

A phantom brake behind a concrete truck is the first of several, which David finds disappointing next to his smooth ride a month or two earlier. The car reaches 43 mph in a 45 zone, then brakes hard again at a spot that only looked like a speed bump. It misses a left turn, loops back to the Tropicana intersection, slows to 9 mph and cuts across to make the turn. It also struggles with cones and a merging driver.

[14:30] Airport Terminal Drop Off

The vehicle takes the departing flights exit at about 24 mph. The false seatbelt alert sounds again while it finds a place to stop and passes very close to another car’s door without contact. It drops David at the curb with hazards on and safety prompts on screen.

[15:27] Terminal 1 Level 0 Pickup Signage

David books the return to Resorts World. The app selects a pickup at the Conrad, and the fare is $2 more than the outbound ride with a 28 minute estimate. Zoox Level 0 signage leads riders down from baggage claim, and he calls it the best rideshare signage he has seen at any airport. The wait grows by 45 minutes, pushing the total past an hour, and passersby show interest in the service.

[17:08] Return Ride Boarding and Seat Setup

The Zoox arrives and David opens the doors from the app. He sits rear facing to get a different perspective, puts the backpack back on a seat to test the sensor, and starts the 22 minute ride. He tries the wireless charger and the USB ports, which work. The backpack does not trigger an alert this time, so the earlier issue looks like a fluke.

[20:05] Return Journey, Construction Handling, and Bus Bypass

An elderly couple honks, waves and films the vehicle. The Zoox clears a construction zone with cones and a worker in the road at 43 mph without trouble. It again avoids the Strip and uses Interstate 15 instead of the back road Motional tends to use. It goes around a stopped bus in an awkward maneuver, and the screen now announces upcoming turns since the vehicle has no turn signals. David describes a tale of two rides, with a rough trip out, a smooth trip back, and wait estimates that remain unreliable.

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Full Field Report Transcript

Booking a Zoox Ride from Resorts World

David Moss: So we’re out at Resorts World, beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. We’re gonna take a Zoox to the airport, so let’s see that experience. So all you did is open up the Zoox app. They’re now offering paid rides. They, they have rides in also in San Francisco, and soon in Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida.

But we wanna go to the airport, so let’s type in airport. We’re gonna try terminal one, and then there’s a new pickup zone which is really nice at the Hilton side here. Normally you get dropped off at the other end, so we are gonna pick that instead of the other casino option. Guess we’re already on that, but you can see you can slide in between. It’ll give you walking directions.

Great. Let’s just say we’re going to Delta. And $30 for the ride. N- now I’m just gonna move it away for the Apple Pay so you don’t see my address. And then it’s loading on there. And then we’ll see how long it takes to get a ride. So it’s thinking on my card. Thinking on card, and there you go. Finding your Zoox. So they just opened service at AM this week. See you in 26 minutes. That does not surprise me for Zoox. but the hours have historically been AM till AM, and now it is AM to AM as of this week. It’s a nice change of pace on there. So we’ll, we’ll talk back to you in just about a half hour. Of booking, 26 minutes.

We’re at Resorts World again, and the car is here. It is. And it’s coming right on its way, just on time And so we’re gonna Follow this baby. Of course, I would be in position normally, but we’re Had to see it up close, get the shot. But I, I, I was too busy looking at this and not putting it in place back So all we did was hit open doors on the app And we’re here. Let’s lock. Good place for the bag.

Okay. Welcome back. I just saw you place your bag. So we can hit close doors, and then- Gonna put our seatbelt in. It’s saying fasten seatbelt. And then now we can start the ride And it’s saying 21 minutes to get here. It was just about, it was just about 20 minutes just under with the Vegas Loop this morning coming here. But but yeah, we’re doing field reports special field correspondent The Road to Autonomy.

So thank you, Grayson, thank you, Rob, for the opportunity. But we’re out here. Fasten seatbelt. So it’s getting mad. Please fasten your seatbelt for your own safety. It’s getting mad about my backpack, and it’s not even that heavy Fasten your seatbelt now or we’ll need to end your ride So it’s flipping out over a backpack when you don’t have a trunk or anything Oh, we’re getting this. We’re getting this You’ll be connected to group support shortly Hello, this is Charmaine with Tuke Support on a recorded line. Just calling in as a reminder that seat belts must be fastened- Yeah. and drivers must be seated throughout the duration of the ride. Yeah, your, yeah, the car was flipping out ’cause of my backpack on the seat.

I’ve had it on the whole time. You can check it. Okay. But- Thank you so much. yes, since you have me on the line, do you have a- any other questions for me today? No, no. It’s been, been a great experience other than that, but, you know. Awesome. Thank you so much, David. If you do have any other questions to ask during your ride, you can go ahead and use those touchpads to the left and right of you. Hope you have a great day today in the city, and thank you for choosing Tuke. Thank you. Thank you.

Cars still flipping out Please fasten your seatbelt for your safety See if it calls it again Fasten your seatbelt now- And again, you, you can see it. you will need to end your ride I’m in my seatbelt. I even took the backpack off. Absolutely no weight on any of the other seats The jingle has stopped So I guess it’s not gonna call the An annoying experience nevertheless So we’re on here. It’s taking a back way not on Las Vegas Boulevard, but that’s honestly the quicker way And we’re off to the race.

We’re taking quite the interesting route. Again, we started up right around here on the strip. There, there’s Fontainebleau. so yeah, right around here, and it’s ha- want us all the way around, so we’re kind of making a big L at the airport over here. So you can see more about the L that we’re taking. You can see Caesars Palace, Aria, Bellagio, and more. Seatbelt sign alert still going on, but we’re going 31 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone. Now 33, 34, but I’ve not seen it speed. But we’re ticking away, slow and steady. We did get honked at at one point. I think it was for slow speed. We were in the right-hand lane, though.

But positive experience. Definitely glad I took it, taken it. Way better than Uber. Waiting for something interesting to happen. I was going through the channels. We’ll have to play it, but it keeps getting stuck on the same station. So if I go to, like, h- hip hop, it keeps playing the same song. Like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t change to that radio station after all, so I can’t even play what I want. On their own tunes, you can.

I imagine you can still connect. Yeah, you can still connect on Zoox, but. Oh, it’ll, it’ll automatically connect every ride. That’s cool. I didn’t know that. But I can’t play some music in the meanwhile. But we can adjust the climate And on here, let’s just try to get that a little, looking a little better. but you can adjust the temperature, so you can go max cold on this side, and then you can hear the fan turning up, and then you can increase that as well. So no heated seats, no cooled seats, no trunk But still having a great time. Now we’re crossing Las Vegas Boulevard.

We’re working our way towards the airport. Just had another phantom brake because of this concrete truck in front of us. so honestly, Zoox rides, like the last time I was here in town a month or two ago, was. It was wonderful. It seemed like a big step ahead. But now I’ve had two phantom brakes, two out of the worst three I’ve experienced in the Zoox ride. I just noticed in the Zoox it’s daytime again. It’s, like, AM, and the lights are on in the car. Now we’re picking up speed, 43 miles an hour in a 45. We are passing traffic. There’s the airport. We’re getting close.

About the fastest I’ve ever been in a Zoox, and it’s feeling great. Now we’re making our right-hand turn to get even closer to the airport, turning off Tropicana. We’re getting closer by the minute. It’s currently. It’s horribly, w- the visibility of what you can see in a Zoox, but it is nice and bright in here. It’s not really good for sightseeing but it is pleasant. You get the sun in here, but not overly. We just had another phantom brake. it was a spot that looked like almost like a speed bump, but it wasn’t. But I don’t know if it picked up in the video.

But in a lot of ways, honestly, I hate to say it, that the worst Zoox ride I’ve experienced in terms of, you know, smoothness. But it’s really fun and great to go to the airport. We just started heading the other direction. Apple Maps is suggesting that we need to take a left. Currently, as you can see, we’re in the far right-hand lane. brake stabbing on there. having to play chicken with the guy, letting him in or not right there. The guy was not being very nice. But our car was necessarily not being amazingly smooth, but I’ll have to stay tuned, but looks like we need to take a left to go to terminal one, unless this has a special route I’m not aware of.

Missed that turn that Apple Maps said it needed to make, and now we are still in the right-hand, far right-hand lane, and it’s still proceeding to go straight. But you can see, so we’re turning. We need to turn back onto Tropicana. Okay, so just. Oh, I just. I thought it was gonna wedge itself into that lane, but it just stayed in the second to the right lane. But we’re proceeding back to the Tropicana intersection, so it’s basically taken three rights and we’re back to where we just were. Zoox is- I’m trying to get over Same intersection But it’s really slowing down.

It’s going nine miles an hour. it’s cutting over. We’re currently in a straight lane. it could not take a left out of this lane. and now it’s. Oh, okay, so now we’re hovering. It’s green light. It’s a green light, and it has the go. We’re in a straight lane, and it just went over and cut middle of the intersection to take the left. Okay, so it was having to fight over, getting tiny bit, a little bit confused with these cones.

Wasn’t the smoothest, but it looks like we’re- Making some good progress. Okay, we’re now, we’re about to see the Harry Reid sign It looks like we’re gonna make it, but after I must. I don’t know what that was, if that was for the construction or, I mean, there’s no way to know. But yeah, had to definitely fight over and you know, not, not an incredibly smooth experience. We’re getting really close. I just took the departing flight’s exit. We are getting past. We’re in the left-hand lane. We’re doing 24 miles an hour.

But – Right Experience, really fun. And again, I mean, with all, everything that’s happened, I can’t put into enough words of how much I would rather take this than a Waymo or a Lyft or taxi cab. This is a way better experience be- being all alone, even with the hic- hiccups So now we’re having a chime. Please fasten your seatbelt for your safety. Okay, that seatbelt thing has gone off again. You can see again, you’ve seen on clip, I’m, I’m clipped in. Fasten your seatbelt now or we’ll need to end your ride.

It’s got. Right here, we’re very close to a guy’s door Okay, so did not hit it. Did what it needed to do. The seatbelt is going off again No, we haven’t yet Please fasten your seatbelt for your safety. that’s having finding the best place to stop So maybe- Fasten your seatbelt now or we’ll need to end your ride. Really annoying. Again, you can see, not on the seat. Bag is on there So now we’re on the curb And we made it Please watch your head The hazards are on As you leave, don’t forget your things And open door. Drop to the curb.

Now we’re gonna get a ride back Go back to Resorts World, and we’re gonna pick Terminal 0, and we’re gonna pick. Oh, it picked the Conrad. Look at that. Okay, that’s perfect. Well, that works out. So they got lots of pickups. So request a ride. So two dollars more than on the way here. Same thing with the Apple Pay. Gotta hide that. Soon as that processes, we’ll show you that, and we’ll see how long it takes to pick up 28 minutes.

They even have signs for Zeeks level zero, just like Vegas Loop or in baggage claim. There’s the level zero, then you just take this escalator down Got off the escalator, and there’s another sign, and another sign. It’s really well labeled There’s one of our Toaster Buddies. It’s not ours. Still got 20-something minutes, but really amazing signage. The best I’ve ever seen for any rideshare at any airport. Incredibly easy time getting a ride, and there’s even all these signs as well all the way down this whole area.

There’s been multiple things this whole time waiting for Zoox. It’s a little popular. They wanted to try it. It’s now, and we just ballooned up to 45 minutes now, additional wait. 45 minutes extra. I don’t even know how long we are. We’ll tally it on the screen at the end, but I mean, it’s gonna be over an hour to get a ride. So here’s our ride. Pulling up So we’re getting close on there So about 45 minutes.

So it was book- booking, and it’s right now. we have to hit open doors. Doesn’t let you press the button. I like that it says the DM on there on the screens. I think that’s new on there. So let’s- Take a seat. Let’s go backwards this time, and then we’ll try the backpack thing again just to see if it actually will trigger it Welcome back I’m not very good at many things in life, but I am very good at, these days, at getting in cars and putting seat belts on with one, one arm.

Okay. Re- requested by David, 22 minutes. Let’s start ride. Now I’m in the backwards position, which is very unique And we’re, we’re off. So to get, get the other perspective on the way back Well, ride in reverse, so some of the phantom braking and some of the other stuff we won’t be able to exactly know what happened I will still try it out nevertheless. But actually, we’re gonna use the wireless charger, which is slow, but they do have USB-C ports. You see right in the middle in here.

You can see that C getting dirty. But well, let’s, let’s test it out Moove Waabi So plus the anchor Incur Plug it in this guy and we’re great. Right. charging. It works And the backpack is not triggering the airbag this time after all. So it was just a fluke This guy’s days are numbered People love the Zoox. just had a nice elderly couple honk the horn and wave at me and the wife was, was filming on her cellphone.

So, public appeal it seems here in Sin City. Construction area, you can hear it going over stuff and passing cones, and Zoox is doing great. There was actually even a construction guy out in the middle of the road, and it didn’t give any trouble at all. Look at that sign, navigating road markers, and yet 43 miles an hour. It’s doing great. Night and day difference on this ride going back to Resorts World.

And the same thing again where we’re taking a big L and avoiding Las Vegas Boulevard in the east side of the strip and going across I-15 to work our way up the other way in a, again, a unique route. See we’re still going across and about to take a right to go back over on I-15. What’s interesting is that there is a road that’s on the back side of the west side of the s- the strip, a road Motional likes to use, and I’ve seen Zoox use on my rides between Luxor and Resorts World. It’s not taking that route.

It’s actually going around the freeway. So maybe this is the right call. I’m not a Las Vegas native, but again, a new route for the airport. We got a bus that stopped, and Zoox just went around it. It was not very natural movement. It def- literally had, had me turning my head saying, “What the heck was that?” But it did successfully move around it. In addition to the talking about the cones and the construction, it even tells you now when the car is turning soon. So there is no turn signals in a Zoox but they do give you cues on the screen about its upcoming moves now. It’s really been the story of two rides.

You can start to see Resorts World up there. We’re getting close. It’ll drop us off at the Conrad. Shout out to Hilton for the upgrade. Here’s the Resorts World sign as I say that. But I’m loving Diamond Reserve status but even upgrade your hotels at Resorts World. but yeah, in the tale of two rides, to sum it up, first one, a whole bunch of phantom braking. I’m sure that was a missed turn.

There’s no way that it was doing, you know, a figure-eight loop on there and then, you know, fighting over the two intersections to get over. that wasn’t a pleasant experience. But this one, very bad, you know, 45-minute wait. it said it was gonna be 26 minutes and then jumped up, so the story of Zoox inaccurate timing positions, predictions continues. But this ride was, was great. It was flawless.

We went through construction. There was even humans there. It didn’t freak out. It gave us warnings on the screen. the bag didn’t, didn’t pull off on the alarm like it should. I mean, it was great experience. So I don’t know how it could be so widely different going to the same place back and forth, but that’s just the truth, ladies and gentlemen. And look at that, there’s the ding. We really are getting close.

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