00:00Congratulations. This is something that I've been questioning you about for years.
00:06You have. You're allowed to charge a fare now. What's the plan?
00:10First, thanks for having me. Exciting. Starting this phase of the journey.
00:14We start in Las Vegas next week on Monday.
00:18And then we have San Francisco coming up.
00:22We have more permits to get in California.
00:24Later this year, Miami and Austin will be entering Atlanta and L.A.
00:30And then we've also started testing in Dallas and Phoenix.
00:33So you can assume the robo-taxi is coming.
00:36So starting now the commercial journey and bringing what we think is this delightful experience to customers.
00:43So there's going to be a base fare.
00:44And then the final fare gets calculated based on the distance traveled and how long it takes to get there.
00:50And your assurance, it'll pick the best route.
00:53But put some sort of dollar figures behind that.
00:55How it compares to jumping in an Uber or a Lyft driven by a human.
00:59So we're anchoring around what we call the comfort pricing.
01:02This is known in the industry as a category of fare.
01:06One thing that one decision we've made, it's so early in the journey.
01:10So whatever we quoted you in terms of the best route, that is what we will charge you.
01:15So base fare, time, distance traveled.
01:18There are some surcharges.
01:20So, for example, the airport is not starting on Monday.
01:22The rest of the destinations are, but it will be coming online soon.
01:26So there's a surcharge for that.
01:27We're also offering some delightful experiences to the sphere with a special auto sphere.
01:33And this is in Las Vegas?
01:34In Las Vegas.
01:34Yes, with a drop off.
01:36So there might be an additional fee for that.
01:38But whatever we tell you we're going to charge you is what we're going to charge you.
01:41If we took a little longer or the route was a little longer, we're not going to change the price.
01:48What are the learnings from Las Vegas?
01:50You know, I think the very simple question is, are people that are in Las Vegas and hail Azouk's prepared
01:56to pay for it?
01:57Well, we're about to find out.
01:59We think so.
01:59You must have an indication, though, yeah.
02:01The demand has been awesome.
02:03We've been monitoring from customers not just how do they enjoy the experience, but what they're willing to pay for
02:09it.
02:10So we are cautiously optimistic that they will be happy to pay for this experience.
02:15And hopefully that will also modulate a little bit of the wait times that you see in Las Vegas right
02:20now because it's free.
02:22Charging Affair is a big piece of news because it allows you to progress commercially, right, beyond R&D.
02:28But it's not the only piece of news.
02:29So regulators said over the next two years you can deploy 5,000 of the Zouks on public roads.
02:36How do you respond to that?
02:37Like what's the ramp up in production and deployment?
02:39So I haven't changed.
02:41Measured approach.
02:42But you can see you're laughing.
02:45Measured approach.
02:46But you can, I mean, one of the things we're looking forward to was starting the commercial journey, but also
02:52just starting to unleash more robots.
02:53Now, they're not going to come all at once.
02:55We'll slowly ramp up the fleet size at all locations.
03:01And we think that 5,000 is only the beginning.
03:04For the record and the tape, I don't know which camera the director wants me to look at.
03:07I'm not laughing at Aisha.
03:08I'm just smiling because you're always cautious.
03:11You're always very deliberate in the timelines that you set out, more modest than other CEOs we've heard from in
03:16the last 24 hours.
03:18But, you know, you have utilization data in lots of cities.
03:23There isn't necessarily a match of the supply of those vehicles to the demand right now.
03:27We're very confident in the utilization.
03:31I mean, look, it can't be 100 percent because we have to go pick up people, drop them off, go
03:35pick up the next customer.
03:36But the industry quotes around 54 percent.
03:41We're very confident that we will beat that.
03:43And we've seen that from customers.
03:45Zoox is owned by Amazon, right?
03:48How much pressure are you under to deliver some commercial success, bring in some real revenues and money?
03:55A lot less pressure than I put on myself.
03:58How's that?
03:58It's been a long journey.
04:00We're celebrating our 12th anniversary.
04:03So starting this phase, I mean, we've always said we're here to build a business.
04:06We're here to deliver an experience for people and, frankly, to change how people move throughout society.
04:13So Amazon is a great parent.
04:14I have zero complaints, literally.
04:17But, you know, a lot of us have been waiting a long time.
04:20And so to finally sit here and talk about building the business as opposed to just the progress of the
04:26technology is key.
04:27Now, having said that, safety, foundational.
04:30And perform well, that's key.
04:32What people might not be familiar with is that you build the Zoox here in the Bay Area.
04:36Can you just talk a little bit about that quickly?
04:38The factory is great.
04:39It's producing.
04:41It's nice that we used to talk about how many robots per week.
04:44We're now talking about how many robots per day.
04:47It's cranking.
04:48They are ready to go.
04:50And we'll start unleashing them into these multiple locations.
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